


maybe i’m breaking up with myself

by Anonymous



Series: we all float on [1]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Abusive Myra Kaspbrak, Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Children, Coming Out, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Emotional Abuse, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Smut, Falling In Love, Flashbacks, Fluff, Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, Gay Richie Tozier, Getting Together, Grinding, Growing Up, Happily Ever After, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Kid Fic, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Mild Transphobia, Movie: IT Chapter Two (2019), Multiple Pov, Parent-Child Relationship, Past Abuse, Past Domestic Trouble, Reconciliation, Romance, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, Song Lyrics, Sonia Kaspbrak’s A+ parenting, Stanley Uris Lives, changing, handjobs, mature content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:54:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 59,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22201417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Underneath Derry, Richie Tozier is caught in the Deadlights.  At that moment, across the country in the thick summer heat of Los Angeles, Henley Tozier passes out cold.Three minutes pass, and Eddie Kaspbrak is impaled through the chest.  At that exact same time, Atticus Kaspbrak clutches at his stomach, where a knife-sharp inexplicable pain is blooming.title taken from ‘the fall’ by imagine dragons
Relationships: Ben Hanscom & Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough & Mike Hanlon, Eddie Kaspbrak & Myra Kaspbrak (Past), Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Patricia Blum Uris & Stanley Uris
Series: we all float on [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1689517
Comments: 73
Kudos: 228
Collections: Anonymous





	1. into the unknown

**Author's Note:**

> always nervous to unveil kid characters but i’m proud of where this fic is going
> 
> yes this was originally published under a different name, but i took it down because i changed the plot quite drastically and it’s (hopefully) better now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _don’t you know there’s a part of me that longs to go?_

**New York City, 2002**

_She can’t keep it,_ she tells Richie. She looks like she doesn’t want to tell him as she pushes the engagement ring across the coffee table. He just stares at the ring as her hand recoils from it, and he’s gaping like a fish. 

_She’s had a great time with him,_ she says, _but she’s young, and they don’t have any money, and she’s unsure about marriage or God forbid a baby._ He feels stupid, and devastated, like a child.

_What will you do,_ he asks, his eyes drifting towards her stomach, at the child growing there. She touches a hand to it faintly, her eyes drifting away from his. _Abortions exist Richie,_ she says and he blinks owlishly, he’s not following but he doesn’t know why. 

_But the money,_ he begins his plethora of questions, and she cuts him off, tells him that _she can find an easier, cheaper way that no one has to know about_. He knows that’s not safe for her, they’ve both seen the statistics. He suddenly can’t get the image of coat hangers, rusted and dirty, out of his head.

_I can get the money,_ he pleads, because God forbid she die in some back alley or in someone’s basement because of a botched abortion. _I’ll get the money and you can do it safely,_ he tells her and she sighs. He knows deep down that this is her choice and body. It’s not up to him. 

But they weren’t just lovers, they were friends, and he can’t watch her do this to herself. They’ve shared dreams and ambitions and motivations and secrets in the two years they’ve been together. They sit in silence on the old, tattered couch in his apartment as the cars and taxis of New York City buzz outside the apartment window. 

_He has an idea,_ he tells her.

At the same time, in a different part of New York, Mr and Mrs Kaspbrak are sitting in a fertility clinic. The doctor is talking to both of them, droning on about blood tests and sperm count and the pros and cons of IVF but Eddie can’t pay attention for the life of him. His leg’s bouncing in his ironed khakis, his eyes keep drifting to the window, away from the suffocating, thick air of the room. He’s scratching at his wrist absently, starting to sweat as his wife looks accusingly at him out of the corner of his eye.

_‘They’re expensive,’_ he’d told her, _‘and messy and they get sick easily. Infertility runs in my family anyway.’_

What he didn’t tell her was _‘I would rather die than watch my kid be raised like I was. I don’t know how to be a father because I never had one. You only want to be a mother so you can have something that’s easier to trap than me.’_

But instead, he translated his reluctance to have a child into a language she could understand, a language of health and expenses and worry.

But she never listens to him, and now they’re sitting here as a doctor lectures them and he’s miserable. 

Fourteen years later, in the horrid little town of Derry, Maine, the Losers sit reunited in a little restaurant, and Richie Tozier is very happy for the first time in a very long time. 

“Wait, holy shit, Eddie you got a kid? You got fuckin’ married?”

It hurts that Eddie’s married with a fucking kid of all things. It makes Richie want to drink until he can’t feel anything anymore. So that’s exactly what he does.

Eddie looks over at him, squinting indignantly. “Yeah, what’s so fucking funny, dickwad?”

Richie can’t help the bitter tinge that taints his voice. The liquor has made him loose and giggly and emotional. “What, to like, a woman?”

Eddie frowns as the rest of the Losers laugh. He points a menacing chopstick at Richie. “Fuck you, dude.”

Richie combusts into giggles, and he feels like a kid again; knees bruised from burning asphalt and the summer wind in his hair as he sped down a hill on his bike. 

“Fuck you!”

Bill interrupts from across the table. “Okay, what about you, Trashmouth, you married?”

“There’s no way Richie’s married!” Beverly laughs, her smile as bright as the day Richie first saw it.

For a moment, he thinks back to the woman he knew thirteen years ago, who he loved for two and a half years. He thinks of her and the baby she had in her apartment. He thinks of how after months of papers and court proceedings, he took that baby and ran away across the country to LA. He thinks of that kid he left across the country.

He thinks of his daughter, and he makes a joke until they’re all laughing again so that no one is looking too close.

Two days later, Richie Tozier is caught in the Deadlights. At that moment, all the way across the country in the thick summer heat of Los Angeles, Henley Tozier is at the county pool when she passes out cold on the concrete deck.

Three minutes pass, and Eddie Kaspbrak is impaled right through the chest. At that exact same time, Atticus Kaspbrak sits up on the couch and clutches at his stomach, where a knife-sharp pain is blooming deep in his muscles. He winces and catches the attention of his mother in the other room. She rushes over to his side, honey-sick voice falling from her mouth as she coddles and dotes over him.

The pain is gone as soon as it came, but the unshakeable dread that’s plagued Atticus since his father left on some _‘work trip’_ remains.

It wasn’t that hard for Henley to figure out where her dad went. She’s a smart kid who knows her dad better than he thinks she does. She knows her father’s usual tour dates and that he tells her when he’s planning on leaving. He doesn’t just come home from a show, pale and shaky, and begin packing his suitcase and calling up Henley’s usual sitter. It’s suspicious.

_It’s for a work thing,_ he’d told her as he downed a glass of bourbon before leaving. But she knew he was lying. 

_‘I need to head to Maine for a little bit’_ she’d already heard him say shakily into the phone as she stood silently in the hall and listened, _‘Just come watch Henley for a few days, I’ll be back soon.’_

Henley didn’t know much about Maine or why her dad was lying, but after a quick google search and some nosing around, she found Derry. She forgot about that little town in the two days her father was gone, but when she woke up on the warm pool deck with a bloody nose, surrounded by paramedics and lifeguards, Derry was the first thing she thought of.

“You have to buy me a plane ticket to Maine.” She says after a day full of calling and texting her father with no response. Her sitter, a young woman named Ceci with long dark curls, looks at her from the stove where she’s no-doubt cooking something delicious.

“Why do I have to do that?”

Henley breathes in, ready for Ceci to think she’s lost it. “I think Dad’s in trouble.”

Ceci sets down her wooden spoon, sets her hand on her hip and looks at Henley from underneath her thick brows. “And _why_ do you think that?”

Henley swallows. “Okay so I didn’t really have a vision but—”

“Mm-hm, that’s what I thought.” Ceci muses and turns back to the stove. She’s stubborn, and that’s why Dad trusts her so much. She doesn’t take any of Henley’s bullshit like he does.

“Ceci, hold on. I passed out today—”

“You passed out?” Ceci whirls on her. Richie likes her cause she’s caring too.

“Yes, but that’s not the point—”

“Ay, chica, you need to tell me these things, goddammit.” She leans over the island in the kitchen and presses a warm palm to Henley’s forehead. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine, Ceci, I feel fine. But, Ceci, I felt something.” Henley says, trying to make herself make sense.

“Like what?” Ceci asks, crossing her arms and looking Henley up and down.

Henley sighs. “Something bad.”

Ceci doesn’t buy it - but that’s not stopping Henley anytime soon. She’s never felt this bad before, and she’s sure it had something to do with Dad. _Maybe I have a sixth sense,_ she thinks to herself as she buys a plane ticket to Maine off of her dad’s account three days later. He’d saved all his data already, so the credit card information was already filled out when she bought the ticket.

Then, she packs a backpack with clothes and anything she thinks she’ll need. She’s never been out of LA before, so she’s not sure what she will and won’t need. She can’t ask Ceci. And she’s pretty sure there isn’t a WikiHow for running away from home to go rescue your father who may-or-may-not-but-probably-isn’t in any danger. 

She eyes her pocket knife that she keeps under her bed while she pulls on one of her Dad’s old shirts. She doesn’t need it. She’ll probably never need it. But then she’s reminded of waking up on the pool deck, gasping for breath. She’s reminded of the dread she felt in her stomach, that palpable, sicky nervousness as she walked home and uselessly called her father.

Henley grabs her knife and stuffs it in her bag.

Then, at five in the morning, on the seventh day since her dad left, Henley sneaks out of her LA home and catches a taxi to the airport.

Atti’s story is different. Myra wouldn’t be swayed to buy him a plane ticket to Maine just so her son could track down her ex-husband. At least, she wouldn’t let him go alone, and his parents together in one room isn’t a can of worms Atti wants to open. 

So he does a thing he’s gotten used to after thirteen years and he lies to his mother.

He lies to her, and he tells her instead that a friend from school invited him on a week-long camping trip in the Catskills. It’s close enough that she won’t freak out, but far enough away that cell reception will be shit and he can get away with avoiding her calls. Sure, he has to throw in some bullshit statistics about how fresh air is good and young kids heading into their teenage years need independence from their parents. And even after that, she’s reluctant to let him leave.

_‘Atti, dearest, you’ve never been that far away before! And it’s for so long, don’t you think you could come home early, I’ll miss you dearly! And besides, the woods are full of bugs and snakes and poison ivy! Are you sure you know what poison ivy looks like?’_

So, he steals her credit card from her purse and buys himself a bus ticket to Bangor. It’s terrifying and thrilling all at once. It feels like he’s on the run. He wonders if his Dad felt like this when he scurried off to Maine without a word to his ex-wife or their son. He packs up his things in a suitcase and a backpack and with a _‘bye mommy, I love you too, yes I’ll call’,_ Atti hails a taxi to the bus stop.

Eddie is in and out of consciousness after his twenty-six hour long surgery. Richie sits with him through it all, listening to Eddie’s doped up, slurred speech and holding his hand as he sleeps. The doctors say he’s stable given his condition, even though Eddie doesn’t look like it. He’s sickly pale, unconscious most of the time, and when he’s awake he just lays there and talks nonsense to Richie. The nurses come in twice a day to change his bandages. Richie and Mike catch a glimpse of the damage once; an angry, red wound, swelling with pus and thick, dark blood. Richie runs to the nearest bathroom and vomits. He guesses Mike is getting pretty sick of Richie’s weak stomach by now.

As Richie’s washing his face in the hospital sink, head still swimming, Mike tells him that pus means it’s getting better. The wound is healing, expelling all the bad stuff. But it doesn’t ease Richie’s mind that much.

Feeling Eddie’s blood on his face and dragging his unconscious body out of Neibolt almost broke Richie. He could barely even carry Eddie, Ben and Bill had to do most of the heavy lifting. He broke down when they got him into the hospital and wheeled him into the ICU. He collapsed right to the floor and put his head in his hands and cried. 

He’s not supposed to cry, he’s supposed to be the comedian, the Trashmouth, the one that brings levity to all this clown bullshit. The Losers need him to do that, not to cry when the going gets tough. But seeing Eddie like that made him lose his mind. Eddie always makes him lose himself.

But, still, his friends didn’t hesitate to pull him into a chair and hug him through it.

Ben finds him in the waiting room one morning, after they forced Richie to go back to the Inn and sleep for a change. Now, he’s downing a coffee to keep himself awake. He doesn’t want to be passed out when Eddie wakes up and is finally coherent enough to talk. He doesn’t want to miss any of him now that he doesn’t know how much he has.

“How are you feeling?” Ben asks, clapping a hand on his shoulder.

“Fine.” Richie lies. He feels sick with dread. The doctors are constantly hovering over Eddie’s bed, whispering, and they always fall silent when any of them come in to visit. It’s horrifying; more horrifying than anything Pennywise could have done to him. More than the years of lying to himself and the constant fear of being outed. None of that compares to this.

Richie thinks that the run-in in the park wasn’t really his ‘trial’. He thinks trying to kill Eddie was.

He and Ben sit silently for a while, watching doctors pass them by, off to save lives or pronounce someone dead, Richie’s sure.

“Y’know,” Ben starts, then seems to sit with his words for a bit, “when we were down there, and we all got separated.”

He looks at Richie and holds his gaze for a moment or two before continuing.

“For a second, It almost got her. It almost got Bev.”

Someone calls for a doctor over the p.a. A phone rings at the front desk.

“I was...so scared,” Ben finally says with a breathy laugh, “I was so scared that, I guess, I forced myself to get to her.”

They’re silent for a little bit. Richie doesn’t know what to say. He’s not sure if he wants to say anything. 

“I don’t know, Rich, I guess, what I wanted to say is,” he shifts and licks his lips, “I get it.”

Richie blinks at him. Now _that’s_ not where he thought Ben would take it. He thought Ben was going to try and give him some lecture about death, about the importance of letting go or something like that. He didn’t think he’d—

“Get what.” Richie says after blinking owlishly at Ben. He definitely knows what Ben means, but lying has got him this far and he doesn’t plan on giving it up now.

Ben blinks back at him, then flushes and his eyes go wide, like he realizes what he just said.

“Y’know — I-I get it. I get-...” He stops himself and looks away. Richie looks away too, gripping his coffee so hard the light might pop right off.

After a tense silence, Ben clears his throat. “Eddie will get better. He’s strong.”

Richie nods, still religiously staring at the floor. Ben squeezes his shoulder again and smiles at him, and then he gets up and leaves.

It’s not until he’s sure Ben’s left that Richie runs to the bathroom and begins to cry.

Henley looks out the window of the plane at the early morning sun rising over the Los Angeles airport. She’s gripping her backpack close to her chest, her feet kicked up on the seat in front of her. The middle aged woman next to her keeps eyeing her up, like she’s trying to decide if she should contact the flight attendant or not.

Her phone rings, and Henley looks down at it. It’s Ceci. She swallows, and watches it ring for a few moments. Then, she declines the call and puts her phone on airplane mode. She stuffs it into her bag and puts her earbuds in, shifting away from the woman next to her.

The plane starts to pull onto the runway, and Henley tilts her head back, looking up at the ceiling. 

Atti hasn’t even been on a bus before he steps out of the taxi and walks himself down to the bus stop. There are so many people, and he keeps reaching to feel his back pocket and make sure his phone and wallet are still there. Anytime someone gets too close while he’s walking or brushes against him, he thinks he’s about to be abducted. He really hopes he didn’t forget his pepper spray.

It’s early in the morning, and the air is already damp with late summer heat. He’s sweating under his backpack and ball cap. The sun is already high in the sky, the skyscrapers blinding against a cool blue backdrop. The sidewalk is busy this morning, and it’s just like the stereotypical New York you see on television. Except, this time, _he_ feels like one of those poor, lost tourists that the natives make fun of; stupidly lugging their bags behind them on the cramped sidewalk.

The bus stop is crowded with tourists and shoppers and grumpy businessmen in gray suits. A baby somewhere is crying. A horn honks, loudly, and he jumps. Someone yells a curse word. Tires screech in the street. He breathes in, then out.

After mumbling apologies and shoving his way through the crowd, Atti reaches the bus. The engine is rattling loudly, like all the dirty, city bus engines do. His arms and legs tremble as he shoves his suitcase into the metal belly of the bus. The hot exhaust pushes into his nose and mouth and threatens to choke him.

“This is a bad idea.” He mutters to himself as he stumbles out of the crowd and shakily pulls his inhaler out of his backpack. He takes a harried, choking breath out of it. He shouldn’t be doing this. His Dad is probably fine. He probably just lost his phone. Yeah. That’s why he hasn’t been answering any calls like he always does. Yeah. Simple.

_‘What the fuck was I thinking?’_ He takes his cap off and runs a hand through his hair as he looks around at the dirty bus steps, the amount of people surrounding him, the weird, brown liquid on the sidewalk that he can’t recognize. He wants to throw up. Or cry. Maybe both.

But mostly, he _really_ wants his Dad.

He could grab his suitcase and hail another taxi and go back to his mother. But then he’d have to tell her why he’d be coming back home. Which would involve telling her the truth. Which would in turn most definitely lead to her dragging him back home and never letting him see his father again. He can’t do that.

He can’t deny the sting in his gut that’s pulling him towards the bus, or how he hasn’t slept in multiple days because he was wide awake with worry. He can’t deny the feeling that he needs to go. 

There’s no going back now.

Atti swallows his fear and forces his legs up the steps of the bus. It smells weird as fuck, and half of the people look up at him like he’s a teenage runaway and they’re three seconds away from calling the cops. But he has to go with it. He has to. 

He picks a seat in the middle, by the window, and plants his backpack on his lap. He breathes in, holds it, and breathes out. He has to calm down; if he has a panic attack on this goddamn bus they’ll definitely call the cops. Cops are not what he needs. He’ll be grounded forever if his mother ever finds out about this. 

So he puts in his headphones and hugs his backpack to his chest and watches in horror as the bus pulls away from the curb and down the city street.

On the seventh day since their fathers left, two different kids are called by the same thing that called to their fathers and head off to the same destination, both thinking the same terrifying, exhilarating thought.

_‘Into the unknown’_


	2. everything stays

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _everything stays, right where you left it  
>  everything stays, but it still changes  
> ever so slightly, daily and nightly  
> in little ways, everything stays_

**Queens, May 2014**

The divorce, which would not be finalized for another one-hundred-and-eighty days, began on one rainy evening in May, when Atticus Kaspbrak was still going by the name forced upon him at birth.

Eddie’s in his office, at his laptop, on the phone with someone from work. And Atti’s in the hallway upstairs, outside the office, trying desperately to suffocate the awful bundle of dread that’s growing in the pit of his stomach. 

He _has_ to do this. If he doesn’t do it now, he’ll never do it; and he can’t pretend for the rest of his life. It’ll kill him if he doesn’t say it.

So he steps into his father’s office and knocks hesitantly on the wooden doorframe. Eddie turns and looks at him, phone tucked between his ear and shoulder. He holds up a finger and turns back to his laptop. Atti swallows.

“Dad, it’s important.”

“One second, honey— no I’m here, I’m listening.” He says the last part into the phone as he types, but Atti doesn’t hear it anyway, he’s too busy swallowing down the lump in his throat. He curls his hands into fists, and breathes in. He’s doing this for _Atticus_ , for the kid he has been his entire life.

“Dad.” Atti says, firmer. Eddie holds up a finger. “ _Dad_.”

Eddie turns and frowns at him. But then he sees Atti’s face, the fear there, the barely held back tears in his eyes. He’s silent for a moment, then he speaks.

“James, I’m going to have to call you back.” 

He says something else and then hangs up, and looks at Atti, eyebrows raised.

“What is it?”

Atti keeps breathing. “Family meeting.” 

Atti’s already booking it out of the room as Eddie sighs and reluctantly stands.

Myra’s downstairs, on the couch, eyes glazed over a magazine and some boring movie on the television. She looks up at Atti when he walks in, with that look in her eyes that she’s looked at him with ever since he cut off his hair. _Baby steps_ , he’d told himself as he watched his hair fall to the floor in thick, dark chunks two months ago.

But now, he has to actually go through with it.

“I thought you were doing homework?” His mother looks at him quizzically over her reading glasses. Eddie stops at the base of the stairs, at least ten feet away from his wife. The two of them are never close anymore.

“I’m calling a family meeting.” Atti says and then grabs the remote and clicks off the television. One more step.

Eddie sighs, “This better be important, you know I’m swamped with work—”

“It is important.” Atti says and watches his father begin to soften. Eddie hesitantly comes and stands in the doorway, and Myra squints at him, then up at her son.

“What are you doing?”

Atti looks at his mother, and then back at his father. Eddie raises an eyebrow, waiting.

“I need to tell you both something.”

Silence. Horrible, stifling, deafening silence.

“I’ve felt this way for a while. It’s why I cut off my hair this spring.”

His mother sets her magazine down and Eddie crosses his arms. Atti swallows. Then he opens his mouth and forces the words out of where they’d been festering like a wound inside of him for so so long

“I’m trans.”

Atti flips through the missing posters stapled to the soft wood of the telephone pole. The papers are worn and ripped with weather and time, each one looking older and older as he goes through them. The stack is almost half an inch thick. His dad's picture isn’t on any of these, but he can’t decide if that’s reassuring or not. 

He was on his way to the Inn - the only one in town, he learned after asking some redneck local - but when he saw these posters, he stopped in his tracks. He’s never seen this many missing kids in his life. It’s just like all the amber alerts his mother warns him about. It sends chills down his spine.

“Fucked up, huh?”

Atti turns, jumping in shock, a hand going up to his chest. The girl behind him raises her hands defensively, and then laughs. She’s got curls, darker than his, chopped off at her shoulders, and wide, bug-like eyes behind her glasses. 

“Sorry,” Atti breathes out, dropping his hand. 

He’s been on edge since he stepped off that dirty old bus into this fucked up town. Derry doesn’t feel like any other town he’s been in. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s completely alone or that he just technically ran away from home, but this place makes him nervous as fuck.

“No biggie.” The girl says, stepping closer and peering over his shoulder at the posters. She smells like sunscreen and beach waves. He shifts out of the way to let her look. “This town creeps me out too.”

“Do you live here?”

“Nah,” she says but doesn’t elaborate, instead dropping her eyes to his suitcase and frowning, “You moving in or something?”

“Oh, no,” Atti laughs breathily, realizing this does look a little strange, a clearly lost kid wandering the Derry streets, lugging around a suitcase. “I’m here to find someone.”

She raises her eyebrows in shock and points at the missing posters.

“Oh, not any of these kids.” He laughs again and shakes his head. Then, after a moment of careful consideration, he decides there’s no harm in telling her the truth.

“I’m actually looking for my dad.”

The girl’s eyebrows go up even higher. “Holy shit, your dad’s missing?”

“No- well, I mean, not really. It’s a long story.”

The girl squints from behind her coke-bottle lenses and nods. Atti sighs. Of course she’d be the type to want every detail.

“He left home last week and I came here after him. I guess I didn’t think too far ahead, ‘cause I have no actual clue where he is.”

The girl hums. “Have a picture?”

Atti nods, and pulls his phone from his backpack. He finds a picture of him and Dad from last Christmas, and shows it to her.

She leans forward and adjusts her glasses. “He’s hot.”

Atti rolls his eyes. “Jesus.”

“Kidding,” she flashes a smile with two front teeth that have a gap between them, “haven’t seen him though. I’m looking for my dad too.”

“You are?”

“Yeah, he got the fuck outta LA and came here. No clue why.” She snorts and shrugs as she starts to walk. When Atti hesitates to follow her, she looks back at him and gestures to him. It seems like a good idea to stick together in this town anyway.

“I’m Henley, by the way.” 

“Atti.”

“Eddie?”

“No, _Atti_. With an _A_. Short for Atticus.”

Henley makes a noise of understanding and clicks her tongue. “Sick name, dude.”

Atti blinks. “Oh. Thank you.”

“Like Atticus Finch. I wish I had a name like that.” Atti’s about to compliment her name and maybe thank her again, but she continues speaking. “You and your old man close I’m guessing?”

“Yeah,” Atti nods, “closer than most, I suppose.”

_‘Closer than mom and I’_ he thinks but doesn’t add.

“Same here. he hasn’t answered his phone in a couple days, so,” she shrugs, “what’s a girl to do?”

“What’d your Mom say?” Atti cocks his head at her. He wonders if she didn’t tell her Mom before leaving either.

But instead, she simply says, like it’s a known fact, “Oh, I don’t have one.”

He goes completely red, “Oh, I-I’m so sorry—”

“Eh, it’s fine.” Henley says, shrugging. “Some people have two, some have one, some have none. I was just lucky number three.”

Atti nods silently. 

“So, where’s the search start?”

“I don’t know, I was planning on going to the Townhouse Inn to see if he’s there.”

“Sick. And if they’re not there, we should check the police station, or maybe the hospital-”

Atti looks at her and squints as she continues to talk. He didn’t think they’d stick together.

She looks back at him. “What?”

Atti is silent for a moment, then he smiles. “Nothing. That’s just a good idea.”

Eddie’s awake when they come to the hospital on the fifth day. He was asleep all morning, but now he’s laying down, blearily staring out the window. He looks over when Richie kicks open the door, grinning. He still can’t sit up for too long and his meds make talking hard, but he’s breathing and that’s all Richie cares about.

He holds his arms up triumphantly and puts on his brave face. “How’re you feelin’ sunshine?”

Eddie scowls, and it still makes Richie’s heart flutter after all these years. He’s such a goddamn sap. 

“Sore.” Eddie mutters weakly, still managing to fit that attitude in those two words. His voice is groggy, and his hair’s all ruffled from sleep. Cute cute cute.

“How did you sleep?” Bev asks cheerily as she moves over and opens the blinds. Bright sunlight flits into the room in rectangular, crystal-like shapes.

“Fine.” Eddie grunts and sits up shakily. Richie avoids rushing over to help him, since the last time he did that Eddie practically bit his head off.

“The doctors say you’re doing good.” Ben says cheerily, pulling up a chair for him and Bev. “Better than expected.”

“Wish I felt more like it,” Eddie grumbles. Richie sits down next to the bed and watches Eddie’s face as he kicks his feet up dramatically. It’s only to get a rise out of him, and it works, since Eddie shoves his feet off with surprising strength and an annoyed grumble.

“Just give it time, honey, you’ll feel better soon.” Bev reaches over and takes his hand in hers.

“Has anyone talked to Stan?”

Ben nods. “We talked to him yesterday, but you were asleep. He’s recovering fine. Told you not to worry.”

“‘Course he did.” Eddie mutters, but he’s smiling.

“Everyone’s just really glad you’re okay, Eddie.” Ben responds and puts his hand on Bev’s shoulder. She smiles at him and covers his hand with her own. Richie notices it, and looks at Eddie. Eddie looks at him.

“Thanks,” Eddie mumbles and squirms again until he’s sitting straighter, “where are Bill and Mike?”

“Went to the Inn,” Bev says, “Bill’s gonna be bunking in the clock tower with Mike.”

“Why?”

“Because they’ve got mega stiffies for each other.” Richie mumbles mostly to himself, playing with the medical equipment on the bedside table, smirking when Eddie makes a face at him. Then, he reaches over and swats Richie’s band away.

“Beep-beep, Richie.” Ben squints, but there’s no actual heat to his voice.

“Not a chance,” Bev laughs, then pauses and seems to consider it, “you really think?”

“Uhm, duh?”

“I don’t believe it.” Bev shakes her head, her scarlet hair bouncing around her shoulders.

“I’m a love _expert_ , Marsh.” Richie says, ignoring Eddie’s scoff. “Trust me, I know these things. Ol’ Homeschool’s crushing on Bill, _hard_.” 

“What makes Mike so special? Didn’t everyone have a crush on Bill at some point?” Eddie mumbles, sounding a little too personal, and Richie shoots him a look. He’s about to ask Eddie if he had a crush on Bill when Bev groans.

“Ugh, don’t remind me.” She says and puts her face in her hands.

Richie cackles. “Aw, man, I remember that!”

“Yeah, yeah. I still can’t believe I thought he wrote me that poem. _Again._ ”

Richie fakes a pout aimed at Ben, who’s gone unceremoniously pink. Richie’s guessing Bev knows the truth by now. He hopes she has at least; he’s not sure how much more Ben can take.

He thinks about what Ben tried to say to him a few days ago. He watches Bev laugh and put her head on Ben's shoulder. Richie’s eyes drift to Eddie, who’s shaking his head. Then it hits him.

Beverly is Ben’s Eddie.

The Townhouse Inn is completely empty and silent when Atti and Henley get there. The whole building is the kitschy small town inn Atti was expecting, complete with weird smelling carpet and archaic molding. Atti leaves his suitcase near the front desk while Henley looks around aimlessly.

Atti taps the bell on the desk hopelessly, and sighs. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s here.” He says and realizes Henley’s not listening, looking among the shelves at the bar in the next room. She picks up a glass and inspects it.

“Well, someone _was_ here.” She remarks and then puts the glass back down. “These bottles have been opened recently.”

Atti smacks the bell and looks around again. No sign of anyone. He hums and looks over the other side of the desk as Henley comes back to his side.

“Ah-ha.” He reaches over and grabs a thick, age-worn book with the name of the inn on the cover. “This must be the guest book.”

“Looks pretty old to me.”

“This whole town seems old,” Atti mumbles and flips open the cover. They rifle through a few blank pages until the signatures start to get more recent.

“Here, here.” Atti says once he sees the signed _Edward Kaspbrak_ he’s gotten used to seeing over his entire life. 

“No shit.” Henley mutters in awe from over his shoulder and points to a name a few rows down, to the hastily scribbled _R.Tozier._

“That’s my dad.”

“Well, that’s what you get in a town with only one inn.” Atti checks the room numbers and then races towards the stairs.

“Hey, wait up!” Henley yells and dashes after him. The two of them rush up the stairs, practically tripping over each other’s heels. The upstairs hall is completely empty, and each room is closed and silent inside. The silence makes Atti grow more and more uneasy.

“Where is everyone?” Henley asks out loud. 

Atti goes to the first door. “This one’s his.” He knocks and presses his ear to the door. “Dad?”

“Dad?” Henley screams down the hall, only to be answered by silence. Atti rolls his eyes at her. He knocks again, and then slowly twists the door knob.

“It’s unlocked.” He says, his hand recoiling from the knob in shock as the door swings inward. Henley comes up behind and looks inside. They both stand in the doorway, wide eyed, as the door continues to creak open.

The room is empty. Atti steps inside tentatively.

“Dad?”

No response. Henley walks in after him, moving over to scout the bathroom. Atti spots two suitcases by the bed, and his eyes go wide.

“These are his! These are my Dad’s suitcases!” He grabs the luggage tag and looks at it, finds his father’s signature again. He practically didn’t have to check; his dad always packs two suitcases.

“Atti?”

“God, I knew it! This means he has to still be here!”

“Atti?”

“What?” Atti looks up at Henley. She’s standing in the doorway to the bathroom, hand still poised on the door. Her back’s to him and she’s silent.

“What is it?” He asks desperately, walking over to stand behind her.

“If your dad was here, he had a really bad time.”

There’s blood. Dripping down the edge of the sink. Thick, dried smears of it on the tiled floor and in the bathtub. The window’s broken and the shower curtain’s torn half off the rod, the rings still scattered at the bottom of the tub. Atti’s pretty sure he blacks out for a second.

“Oh my God.” Atti groans, then he stumbles backwards, falling on his ass onto the ratty carpet. “Oh my God.”

“Yeah, this is bad.” Henley says, voice shaking, as she steps further into the bathroom and continues investigating, like a detective in a gritty noir thriller.

“Oh, I’m gonna be fucking sick.” Atti doubles over and clutches his stomach. His head is pounding, and bile is beginning to climb upwards into his throat. Atti gags and screws his eyes shut.

“The blood is dry.” Henley walks back out and kneels in front of him. “Which means this happened a while ago, probably a few days at least. We don’t even know if it’s your Dad’s—”

“This is his room!”

“It could be the attacker’s blood, Atti.”

Atti covers his face and groans. Tears are starting to form behind his pinched-shut eyelids. Henley touches his leg and then—

—a door closes downstairs. They both look up.

Bill Denbrough notices something’s amiss in the inn almost instantly. He sees the new suitcase in the foyer and the guest book pulled out and opened on top of the desk. 

Henley grabs Atti’s wrists and practically drags him into his feet into the bathroom.

“What are you doing?” He asks as Henley shuts the door almost all the way. She comes over and frantically shushes him, hands wavering over his face.

“Shut up, okay?” She scream whispers.

“Hey, Mike?” Someone, a male voice, yells from downstairs. They both share wide eyed glances towards the door.

“It’s obvious your Dad was in the mafia or some shit, alright? And whoever is downstairs is probably here to clean up any evidence!”

“Do you know my Dad? He’s not in the fucking mafia!” Atti whispers back, his voice cracking. His Dad’s a fucking _risk analyst._ He goes for jogs on the weekends and eats gluten free bagels before he goes to work each morning. He’s not someone who gets involved in dangerous shit.

“Do _you_ know your Dad?”

Atti looks at the blood on the floor. Thinks of the two suitcases and the guest book. Of his Dad leaving out of blue, not a word to anyone. No texts, no calls.

“Oh my God, my Dad’s in the fucking mafia.”

Bill steps up onto the stairs and looks upwards. The door to Eddie’s room is wide open.

“What is it?” Mike asks from where he’s still in the foyer.

“Stay here for a second.” 

The stairs creak, and Henley looks up. Atti claps a hand over his mouth and backs away from the bathroom door. They listen closely, each footstep growing louder and louder. 

“Okay.” Henley whispers and reaches behind her to her pocket. She pulls out a pocket knife, and flicks out the blade. Atti gawks.

“What the-”

“Stay here.”

He wants to tell her to put the damn knife down because it’s obvious she’s overreacting, but then he glances at the blood on the floor and the jagged shards of glass that are still stuck in the windowsill. He shrinks away into the corner instead, and keeps his mouth shut.

There’s footsteps in the room, very close, heavy and solid. Probably a grown man, he thinks. Atti’s holding his breath. The footsteps pause, and then pick up again, starting to grow closer. Henley readjusts her clammy grip on the knife.

Bill creeps closer to the ajar bathroom door, half expecting Bowers to jump out at him. He places a hand on the door and pushes against it gingerly. Bill steps into the bathroom tentatively

Instead of Bowers, it’s two young kids, the girl with a pocket knife held menacingly in front  
of her and the boy cowering behind her, looking like he’s trying to disappear.

“Stay the fuck back-”

“ _Woah,_ woah, okay-” Bill stumbles backwards, holding his hands up in front of him. The girl’s hands are shaking where they’re clutched around the knife. 

“Where’s Eddie?” The boy demands.

Bill pauses, “Wait, you know Eddie?” 

The girl takes a step towards him and he frowns. “Okay puh-put the knife down. Let’s talk, I’m a friend of Eddie’s.”

The boy puts a hand on the girl's shoulder. She lowers the knife slightly. “You are?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he reaches out towards the two of them and the girl tenses up again, “so just put the knife down-”

“Bill?” Mike appears in the doorway and freezes. The boy flinches backwards and the girl swings on him instantly.

“Who the fuck is he?”

“He’s with me, it’s alright.”

“Where did this blood come from? What happened here!” Her voice rises and she looks between the two of them. Bill glances at Mike and swallows.

“Listen, I don’t-”

“Bill, hold on,” Mike points at the boy. “I know you. You’re Eddie’s son, right?”

The boy looks at Mike, wide eyed. The girl looks back at him, the knife still pointed at Bill. 

“It’s… Atticus, right?”

The girl seems to soften. She looks at Atticus. “That your name?”

Atticus frowns. “Yes, that’s my-” he stops himself and swats her hand, and she slowly lowers the knife. Bill sighs.

“You know my Dad?”

“Yeah, I told you, we’re his fuh-friends.” Bill lets himself relax from where he was clutching the edge of the sink. Now that he knows this kid, he has to admit Atticus looks a lot like his father.

“Where is he? What happened?”

“It’s a long story,” Mike sighs, “but we’d be happy to take you both to the hospital.”

“He’s in the hospital?” Atticus goes startlingly pale.

“He’s recovering fine, we promise.” Mike takes Bill by the elbow and pulls him out of the bathroom, and the kids follow them hesitantly.

“You suh-scared the hell out of me with that knife.” Bill tells the girl with a breathy laugh, still trying to get his heart rate back to normal.

She frowns as she pockets the knife. “Yeah, well, you scared the hell out of us.”

“Does Eddie have a daughter?” Bill asks quietly, glancing at Mike.

The girl hears them anyway and snorts. “God, no. I’m not related to him.” She jabs a thumb at Atticus. “I’m Henley, his bodyguard.”

“You’re a pain is what you are.” Atticus mutters.

“Hey wait,” Henley pauses, ignoring him, “have you guys seen Richie? Tozier?”

“We’re both looking for our parents.” Atticus clarifies.

Bill barks out a laugh. “Richie doesn’t have a kid!”

Henley frowns at him, and then Bill notices the waves in her dark hair and her glasses. Oh. Maybe Richie does have a kid. It’s hard to imagine, the Trashmouth himself settling down or being a father. But, Bill himself didn’t think he was the fathering type, and yet he’s still sharing custody over his kid with his ex-wife.

“Wait, so you know him?”

“Yeah, Richie and Eddie are both close friends of ours.” Mike motions to he and Bill and Henley makes a face.

“I’ve never heard of you-”

“Can you take us to them?” Atti interrupts and leaps in front of her.

“Look, we’ll take you both to your parents, as long as you promise not to pull anymore knives on us.” Mike looks pointedly at Henley, but he smiles in the way that always puts people at ease. Henley’s shoulders drop a little.

“As long as I don’t have any reason to start pullin’ knives.”

_‘In this town, you never know’_ Bill thinks but doesn’t say.

Atti hates hospitals. He’s only ever been in one, when his cousin was born and his mother took him to visit the new baby. There was someone bleeding in the waiting room. The halls smelled like chemicals and disinfectant. The baby wouldn’t stop crying.

Now, it is no different. Someone in the waiting room was yelling at a frazzled looking nurse. A toddler was crying as they were being carted out by a tired parent. As Bill and Mike dropped them off in the waiting room, an alarm went off somewhere and a group of doctors ran in the direction of the noise. Someone’s dying, Atti’s sure.

“Do you know if they still use iron lungs?” Henley asks, probably knowing she won’t get an answer. Atti ignores her. 

“Where are you guys going?”

“Just stay here, we’ll be right back.” Mike says and follows Bill through the doors. Atti huffs and flops back into the plastic chair. It creaks in protest under his weight.

“This is so stupid. Dad doesn’t hide things from me.” He mutters and crosses his arms over his chest. There’s something about this place and these people that he just doesn’t like. And he’s getting fed up with not knowing what’s going on. His father’s in the hospital and he has no idea why he’s hurt or why he came here in the first place or how these people know him.

“Are you sure? ‘Cause it seems like your dad’s keeping a lot of shit from you.” Henley says as she digs around in her backpack and pulls out a candy bar.

“Shut up, okay? We’re in the same boat right now, we still haven’t found your dad!”

“Least I know my dad’s probably not dead.”

He reaches over and shoved her as hard as he can. She swears and kicks him in the shin, making him sink further into the chair when the people next to them look over in alarm. He averts his gaze and finds himself looking at the front desk through the glass lobby doors. He suddenly has an idea.

Atti stands up and heads towards the doors.

“Where you going?” Henley calls after him.

_‘None of your business’_ He doesn't say, instead opting to ignore her out of bitterness. She huffs and flips him off behind his back.

Atti walks up to the front desk, where a young nurse is sitting at a computer, and sets his forearms on the counter.

“Excuse me, I was wondering if you could tell me a room number?

“Of course!” She looks up, but falters when she sees him. After a moment, she adds, “Do you have the name, young man?”

“Yes. Edward Kaspbrak?”

He watches as she types it into her computer. “When was he admitted?”

Shit. Atti bites his lip. “Um, I’m not exactly sure,” she shoots him a look, “probably a few days ago?”

She hums, pauses, and then continues to type. Without looking up, she asks, “Are you here alone, young man?”

He fiddles with his fingers, glancing at the keyboard, where her typing has slowed. “No.”

“Who are you here with?” She glances upwards, somewhere past him and over his shoulder.

“My, uhm-” He follows her gaze, and finds a security guard across the lobby, who looks away when Atti catches his eye. Atti looks back at the nurse, now sweating. “Family friends.”

She hums again. She’s stopped typing. “What’s your name, honey?”

“Look, I’m his kid, okay? My name’s Atticus.”

She bites her lip and tilts her head at him. His palms are starting to clam up. He spares a glance over his shoulder and the guard has gotten closer. He’s pretty sure he’s not in any actual trouble, but he’s not interested in drawing any attention to himself.

Eventually, the nurse sighs, and softens, “Room 237, darling.”

He mutters a ‘thank you’ and then turns on his heel and jogs off down the hall, not sticking around to see if the guard will actually try to stop him.

When they get to Eddie’s room, Ben’s sitting alone outside the door. He stands up when he notices Bill and Mike.

“Hey, where are Bev and Richie?”

“They went to get lunch. I texted you guys to see what you wanted but you didn’t answer in time.” He shrugs, and then sees the looks on their faces. “What’s up?”

“Why ah-aren’t you with Eddie?” Bill asks instead.

“Oh, the nurses are in there right now, changing the bandages.” Ben gestures towards the door as he looks between the two of them. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, everything’s fine, it’s just,” Mike looks at Bill, then back at Ben, “Eddie’s kid is here.”

“Oh.” Ben says, eyebrows shooting up.

“And Richie’s kid is here too.” Bill adds.

“Huh.” Ben says, dumbfounded, then after a moment, “Richie has a kid?”

Bill smacks his arm. “That’s what I said!”

It’s hard to find his father’s room, to say the least. They aren’t exactly in numerical order, since some rooms are waiting rooms or conference rooms or offices. And there’s so many people and noises and his brain feels as scattered as confetti.

Eventually, he finds 237.

Without even knocking, he grabs the door handle and bursts in.

There are two nurses, and his father. His father in a hospital bed with one cheek covered in a bandage, his stomach in the middle of being precariously wrapped. Through the bandages, Atti can see the wound, muscle and flesh red and damaged, the rest bruised sickening shades of yellow and purple and green.

The three of them look up at him, and his father does a double take, his eyes going wide when he realizes exactly who it is in the doorway.

“Atticus?”

Atti closes the door quickly. He stands still for a moment, the image still seared into his brain, and then he rushes over to a garbage can and vomits.

“Where the hell’s Atticus?”

“Huh?” Henley looks up from her phone and finds Bill and Mike back from wherever they’d run off to, with some dude with them. Great, another total stranger. 

“Oh. You’re back.”

“Yeah,” Bill says, and then asks again, “where’s Atticus?”

Henley looks around, and remembers Atti running up to the front desk and then disappearing. She makes a sound similar to an _‘i dunno’._ Bill sighs.

“Okay, it’s fine, he probably went to find Eddie.” Mike grasps Bill’s shoulder and motions towards the doors. They start to leave and Henley goes back to her phone.

“You’re coming too, Henley.” Mike says and she looks up. After a moment, she quickly grabs her things and follows them through the doors.

When they find Atti, he’s puking.

The four of them round a corner and see him bent over a garbage can and they stop in their tracks.

“Found him.” She says even though Mike and Bill are already swearing and rushing over to Atti’s side. He stumbles away from the garbage can he’d just emptied his stomach into and groans.

“Oh my God,” She hears Atti groan as he grips Mike’s arm.

“What happened?” Henley asks, and they all ignore her. Typical. So she goes over to the door and looks in through the little window. She can’t see much, but she thinks she sees a few nurses and a man in the hospital bed. She recognizes him as the man from Atti’s picture; his father.

“What happened to him?” Henley turns as Atti speaks behind her, wiping his mouth. Bill stutters. Atti frowns and gets louder. “What happened to him!”

“What happened?” She asks quieter as she goes back over to Ben, and he makes a face and hisses through his teeth.

“Uh-”

“No,” Atti chokes out and pushes away from where Mike is shushing him and trying to get him into a chair, “no, I want to know now. I want to know now what happened!”

He’s getting loud. Henley emits a low whistle as people in the hall start to look their way. She turns back to Atti. “Why are you yelling? He’s not dead.”

He shoots her a withering glare that’s surprising for someone his size. “Do _not_ talk to me.”

She shrugs and steps away. Atti finally sits down, his head dropping into his hands.

“I know you have questions, but you need to breathe for a second-” Mike starts.

“Do you need some water?” Bill asks.

Henley sighs; patience has never been her strong suit.

“Well, I would love to help.” She claps her hand together and looks up at Ben, then to Bill and Mike. “But, this isn’t my problem. And I’m still trying to find my own parent, so-”

“Hey, guys!”

Henley bites her tongue.

“We’ve got breakfast!” Richie says, holding up a brown paper bag from where he’s approaching with a _woman_ \- perhaps the prettiest woman Henley’s ever seen. Her jaw drops. 

“Or lunch, I guess you could say.”

His eyes land on Atti, still fresh from vomiting, and he closes his mouth. “Woah, what the hell-”

His eyes find Henley’s. His mouth drops again and the bag falls from his hand to the tile. 

Henley looks back and forth between her father and this insanely _pretty woman_ as Bill just looks weakly between the two of them. Ben half-gestures to Henley.

“Surprise?” He tries, but it comes out more as a question.

Richie drops his arms. He looks at his daughter, then around the hall, like he’s waiting for something else to happen. Finally, he opens his mouth.

“What are you doing here?”

Henley might just lose it.

“What are _you_ doing here?” She scoffs and points at the woman. “And who the fuck is she?”

The woman blinks. She has shiny red hair that just _has_ to be natural, and blue eyes. _Of course_. “Um-”

Henley’s ignored yet again as Richie looks to Bill. “What is she doing here?”

Bill just shrugs haphazardly, and Henley makes an indignant noise. “Excuse me? Are you joking?”

She’s growing louder, and people are starting to look again. But not at Atti this time. They’re all looking at her. 

Richie finally seems to compose himself because he steps around all of them and approaches Henley and Ben. Ben steps out of the way as Richie grabs her arm and tugs her a little ways away, to presumably scold the shit out of her.

“Ow, Dad, cut it out!”

He lets her go and glares down at her. “Henley May, what the hell are you doing here?”

“What are _you_ doing here!” Henley shout-whispers. “You said you’d be gone for a few days! It’s been a _week_ , Dad!”

“That doesn’t mean you follow me across the country!” He shout-whispers back.

“Then don’t leave your kid across the country!” She thumps him in the chest.

“Henley, this is not the time, alright? You shouldn’t have come here.”

“And you shouldn’t have left me!” She thumps him again and he grabs her wrist.

“I did not leave you, Henley, you’re acting like I abandoned you or something.”

She gawks up at him and stumbles over her words. “Wha- what would you call lying to me and leaving me across the country?”

He shushes her, looking around frantically. “Stop yelling!”

“You stop yelling! You told me you were coming here for work!” She gestures over to where they’re still fretting over Atti. “This isn’t fucking work!”

“It doesn’t matter why I came here, what matters is that you flew across the country unaccompanied! Please tell me that at least Ceci knows you’re here.”

“No, of course not.”

“For fuck’s sake, Henley!” He sighs, throwing his hands up. 

“That’s literally the least of our problems!”

“You don’t understand, this is-”

“No, _you_ don’t understand! You don’t understand-”

“Jesus, Henley, do you want to get taken away?”

Henley stutters, suddenly stopping short in her tracks. “What?”

“Henley.” Richie rubs his eyes, quieting down a little. “You can’t just run away without telling anyone. Did you even think about what Ceci might do once she wakes up and finds you gone?”

Henley’s eyes dart to the floor. “No.”

“Exactly. She’s probably already called the cops and reported you missing by now. You didn’t think about that, did you?”

She grits her teeth. “No. I didn't.”

“Right. So this _is_ actually a big deal, you just didn’t realize because-”

“What because I only think about myself?” She scoffs and crosses her arms, trying to sink further into herself. “Gee, I wonder who I got that from.”

Something in his face shifts. “Wow. Mature.”

“Oh, you’re one to talk! And this- this isn’t even the problem right now!” Henley explodes, “I still have no clue who these people are!”

He shushes her as a doctor steps out of a door down the hall and looks their way, like he’s going to come tell them to shut the fuck up. Richie grabs her shoulders and turns them away. 

“Please keep your voice down. Henley, these are some really close friends of mine.”

Mike looks up from where he’s crouched next to Atti and smiles, despite everything, despite the tantrum she knows she’s throwing. The woman offers a halfhearted wave. Henley grumbles and clenches her fists. They’re all being so nice to her. This is so dumb. 

“That’s my point. _I’ve_ never met them. I’ve never even _heard_ of them.” 

“Doesn’t mean they’re not my friends, Henley. There are people in my life other than you, y’know.”

She snaps.

Henley shoves away from him and glares up at her father. “I’m sorry that I’m such a fucking inconveinience!” 

Of course they’re his friends. But she doesn’t _know_ that. She’s never met these people in her life; she’s never even heard of a Bill or Mike or a Ben or Eddie or whatever that _suspiciously pretty woman’s_ name is. 

“Henley!”

She’s never even heard of these people, and according to their shock, _they’ve never heard of her either._

“I’m sorry that I followed you here and now everyone knows about your dirty little secret!”

Richie opens his mouth and then snaps it shut, his eyes going wide.

“I’m sorry if I find it a little shocking that my father has an entire life here that _I’m_ not a part of.” Her voice breaks and she instantly shuts up. She cries when she’s angry. She cries all the time. She’s just a big crybaby.

Richie softens in less than a second. “Hens-”

“I don’t want to be here anymore.” She says before he can finish and rushes away. It’s all suddenly too much, too many people looking at her and hearing her troubles. She likes the attention and she craves it until she doesn’t anymore and she’s not liking it or wanting it right now.

So she runs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> atti is trans and uses he/him pronouns. disrespectful comments will be deleted


	3. dog days are over

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _leave all your love and your longing behind_   
>  _you can’t carry it with you if you want to survive_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a long one but one of my favorite chapters to date :))

**Summer 2004, LA**

It’s four in the morning, and Henley’s crying.

Their room’s glowing an ugly, burnt orange from the streetlight outside that’s casting shadows through the half-drawn curtains. The bathroom sink down the hall is dripping like it has been since he bought this apartment. Richie groans into the mattress, his hangover starting to pound in his skull as his daughter grows louder and louder. If he stays here, head crushed under his pillow, he wonders if she’ll quiet down and go back to sleep. He’d be the worst parent ever for sure, but he has to get up and run off to work in a little less than five hours.

Henley screams some more.

Slowly, Richie pushes himself up onto his elbows, untrimmed hair falling into his bleary eyes, and looks over at her. She’s standing up, tiny hands gripping the edge of her crib, looking right at him. Her face is red and wet, dark little curls silhouetted against the glowing window. She sees him look up at her, and cries a little louder.

“Look at you,” he mutters, voice hoarse and groggy, as he rubs at his blurry eyes, “standing up and shit.”

She watches him as he rolls over and fumbles around the dresser for his glasses. She continues to scream. 

“Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m on my way.” He says to her. The neighbors will wake up soon. Outside the apartment building, a dog begins to bark.

“You’re waking the whole world with your crying, Henley, my dear.” He swings his legs over the side of the mattress, the rusty old springs groaning with his weight, and he stands. She raises her little arms and makes grabby hands for him. He smiles fondly and takes her into his arms. 

She whines and burrows into his chest as he rocks her and shushes her gently, holding her back. Slowly, she starts to quiet.

“Now you wanna tell me what this cryin’s about? And don’t tell me you just wanted attention. That’s my thing, not yours.”

She makes a soft noise into the fabric of his shirt. 

“Y’know you don’t have to cry all the time, right?” He asks her, and she squirms in response, before she settles. “But I guess it’s kinda the only thing you know how to do yet, huh?”

She’s quiet except for the small, wet sound of her breathing. She looks up at him with big, shiny eyes that will no doubt one day need prescription glasses like his. He smiles.

Things aren’t going too good. He thought things would be easier in LA, but turns out, not a lot of people wanted to hire a broke, alcoholic comedian who still makes dick jokes at twenty-eight. He’d gotten a job writing for a little talk show, thank God, but his ass is already on the line. He’s always late and has to leave early half the time because apparently, no one wants to watch a constantly-crying baby from nine to five every weekday. And Henley never stops crying unless it’s him anyway. 

The bills are starting to pile up and his drinking is getting worse.

Henley whines and squirms again. 

“You’re doing a lot of dancing down there.” Richie looks down at her, and brushes a few stray curls away from her plump face. She grabs two of his fingers in her hands and looks up at him.

“No, I’m not going anywhere, don’t you worry.” He shushes her when she starts to whine. He squirms across the mattress until his back hits the wall and he sits back with a tired sigh. 

She curls into herself, still holding his hand. He yawns, tilting his head back. “Go back to sleep, I’ll still be here in the morning.”

He finds her outside the hospital, sitting alone in the grass, stabbing her pocket knife into the ground between her skinny ankles. The breeze is warm and gentle, unlike the Santa Anas back home. He stares for a moment, just watching. She looks older than the last time he saw her, just barely a week ago. He wishes he’d taken a little more time to say goodbye.

“What’d that dirt ever do to you?”

She stops stabbing, and looks over her shoulder at him. They stare at each other for a moment, dysfunctional father and daughter. A barely working family.

“I don’t want to talk to you.”

“I know.” He says when she turns back around. 

He leaves her alone for another moment, then comes to sit next to her in the grass. It’s a nice cloudless day, and the wind is combing through the trees like it’s searching for something.

“I’m sorry.”

“Okay.” She responds and he thinks that’s fair. She’s hurt. He’s hurt her. He’s supposed to do anything but hurt her. She’s entitled to this anger.

“They aren’t-” He stops, pauses, and restarts. “I don’t have a _life_ here, Henley. This place isn’t my home.”

“You grew up here.”

He frowns. “How do you know that?”

She shrugs, flicking the blade out and in mindlessly. Little dollops of light dance across her face. “I looked it up. Had to figure out where you went.”

He nods and lets them fall into silence again.

“You’ve never even _said_ anything about this place.” She mutters after a few minutes. “Then all of a sudden you up and leave. What’s so important here?”

He swallows. He knew he might have to explain Derry to her one day. He didn’t expect it to be so soon. He didn’t expect everyone to meet her so suddenly. Both of his worlds are colliding so quickly - one of them he didn’t even remember existed until last week- and he’s caught off guard by the collision.

“Parts of my childhood weren’t so good, Henley.” He starts, trying to fit the killer-clown explanation into words she may understand. “I think I repressed a lot of this- y’know, I made myself forget this place.”

She looks at him and nods eagerly for him to go on. 

“And then, I got a call from Mike last week. And I remembered everything so quickly. And, you might not get it, but I had to come back.”

“Why?”

He sighs and purses his lips. “Because those people back there, they’re my family, Henley.”

She looks away.

“But you’re my family too. You’re my daughter.” He moves closer and puts an arm around her, and she leans into him without much fight. She’s pocketed the knife.

“I just didn’t know.”

“I know. I forgot all about them, I would have told you if I hadn’t.” He looks up, into the trees. “But when I remembered, I knew I had to come back. I know it doesn’t make sense, and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

“Why didn’t you tell them about me?” She asks, her voice empty. It pains him to see her this upset. He didn’t say anything about her because he wanted to keep her safe. If he could keep her name out of the air of this town, maybe he could keep It from finding her.

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t ready for some of the most important people in my life to meet each other yet. It was like...you were safe, just from me not mentioning you.”

“Dad, ignoring my existence isn’t keeping me safe.” She leans back to look at him. He can see the reflection of himself, wide eyed and helpless, in her glasses. It’s a remarkably mature thing for her to say. She has those sometimes; little fits of sudden maturity amidst her constant childishness.

“I wasn’t ignoring your-”

“But you were, I think, in your own way.”

He opens his mouth, but stops himself when she looks at him over the rim of her glasses. He swallows. “I know. I am sorry. I’m a dumbass Henley, I can’t help it.”

She laughs through her nose and turns forward again, seeming partially satisfied. They sit in more silence, watching the birds fly over the treetops. Derry’s different now, Richie can practically smell it in the air. The Derry he knew died under Neibolt last week. He wonders what side of Derry Henley will get to know.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Anything, kid.”

“The woman in there? Is she your girlfriend?”

Richie can’t help but laugh. “Jesus, no, kid, Beverley’s just a friend.” Henley still looks suspicious, so he adds, “I _promise._ ”

“Okay. I still have more questions.”

“Fire away.”

“Is Eddie gonna die?”

Richie goes quiet and still. “What?”

“Eddie. Atti’s dad.”

Richie makes a sound, remembering the other kid in the hall, the one with the striking resemblance to Eddie that he only noticed briefly before he noticed his daughter. He marvels at the thought that _Eddie’s kid_ is here.

“No. Eddie’s not going to die.” He responds, even though a week ago, he was wondering that himself.

“What even happened to him?”

His shoulders tense as he thinks about how to answer that. He knew this question would need to be answered eventually. Henley notices immediately, like she can feel it in him. “What? What is it?”

He makes a face as he grapples with how to answer. He has a feeling that the truth isn’t going to sit right with her - maybe it’s the whole demon-alien-clown thing. “That’s a harder question to answer.”

“Why?”

He sits and hums for a moment. She waits, thankfully, but he can practically feel her patience getting thinner.

“I know you have questions. And for good reason. But I can’t tell you that just yet.” She opens her mouth and he holds up a hand.

“I will, Henley, I promise. But do you think you can settle for just one answer today?”

She frowns at him.

“For your dear old man?”

She just barely cracks a smile. Eventually, she sighs. 

“Fine.” She grumbles. “But you owe me.”

He stands up, brushing himself off, and extends a hand to his daughter. Henley takes his hand in both of hers and pulls herself up off the ground. She’s brushing herself off when Richie tucks a stray curl behind her ear. She looks up at him, smiling, and dives in for a hug. He laughs into it, scooping her practically up off the ground. She smells like California, like the sand from the beach and the sun-scorched soil; like home.

The two nurses exit the room a few moments after Richie runs off after his daughter. He still has his heads in his hands, practically trying to disappear. And then the door opens and he almost falls out of the flimsy plastic chair.

“Atticus?”

He nods silently, wide eyed.

“Your father would like to see you.”

He looks at Mike, who’s still crouched next to him, and he nods reassuringly. Atti unclenches the fists he hadn’t known he’d pressed into the meat his thighs and stands. He breathes in and out and enters through the door the nurse is holding open for him.

He hates hospital rooms, but he hates them even more now that his father is in one. He’s sitting up and looking at him with fully function and sober and confused eyes. Atti thought, with a wound that size, they would have doped his father up on medication and he’d be absolutely incoherent by the time Atti finally saw him.

But he’s here, wide awake, and staring his son down with that risk-analyst glare he always uses when he’s looking over paperwork. Atti feels like he’s preparing for an interrogation, even though he’s the one with the most questions.

“When did you get here?” His father's voice is quiet and hoarse, maybe from misuse, maybe not.

“Just this morning.” Atti says back, afraid to raise his voice above anything other than a whisper.

“Why?”

Atti shifts on his feet. “I was worried. You hadn’t answered your phone in awhile. I got a bad feeling.”

Eddie scoffs. “So you, what, you caught a ride to another _state_? Atticus, that’s ridiculous. I can’t believe you chased me all the way here.”

“I was worried, alright?” Atti breaks, uncrossing his arms and gesturing to the room around them. “And for good reason, apparently! What even happened? What is this place and why was there blood in your room and who are these people?”

“Atticus, I’m a grown man and it’s my job to worry about you, alright? You weren’t supposed to follow me here—”

“But I was right to be worried, wasn't I?” Atti interrupts and motions to his father, where that gaping wound is no doubt hidden beneath bandages and his hospital gown.

“I’m not saying your worry was unwarranted, Atticus, I’m saying that you shouldn’t have acted so impulsively!”

“So you’re _mad_ that I’m here?”

Eddie scowls and sets his mouth in a firm line.

“I am _not_ mad.”

Atti snorts. “Yeah. I can totally see how not-mad you are by the withering scowl on your face.”

His father wrinkles his nose at him, but the slightest of smiles pulls at the corners of his mouth.

Atti sets his backpack down on the tile and pulls a chair up to his father’s side. 

“Is your mother with you?” Eddie asks as Atti sits down next to him. He’s trying horribly to disguise the apprehension in his voice, but it’s not working. Atti doesn’t blame him.

“God, no. C’mon, Dad, I wouldn’t put us through that.” Atti laughs and Eddie’s shoulders visibly soften.

“What did you tell her? She’s not the type to let you run off to another state alone.”

“That I’m on a camping trip. In the Catskills. With little to no reception.” Atti cracks a smile, just slightly devious, and Eddie shoves his shoulder fondly.

“Who did I raise again?”

“Hey, you’re one to talk! Care to explain what happened?” He points for the second time to his dad’s stomach. 

Eddie closes his eyes and sighs, chest falling and rising as he clasps his hands over the wound. “I’ll tell you when you’re older.”

“I am older, Dad.”

“When you’re _older-older._ ” Eddie mutters, eyes still closed and Atti laughs.

He eyes Eddie closely, brow furrowed above his dark eyes. “You’re at least not in the mafia, right? Or involved in some cult shit?”

“No, Atticus.” Eddie actually laughs, his smile bright and amused. “I’m not in the goddamn mafia.”

“And the cult shit?”

“No _‘cult shit’_ either.” Eddie smiles. It’s good to hear his son’s voice, even if he’s worried about Atti being in Derry.

“Just a guess. This whole ‘work trip’ feels like my dad’s a secret mob boss or something.”

“Pretty sure mob bosses are the ones putting people in hospitals, Atti. Not the other way around.”

Atti rolls his eyes, but smiles in that little way he does. “It was Henley’s theory anyway, not mine.”

Eddie looks over at him. “Who’s Henley?”

“Oh, Henley Tozier.”

It’s like the air is stolen from his lungs. At first he thinks he heard Atti wrong. He must be making a face, because Atti raises an eyebrow.

“Richie’s daughter?”

Eddie nods quickly, and clears his throat. “Oh. No, no, right, I-” He busies himself by adjusting the blankets around his body. There’s so many questions firing off in his skull and he can’t focus on a single one. “I-I just didn’t know that.”

“Apparently no one knew about her.” Atti mumbles, watching his father squirm uncomfortably.

Eddie blinks. Richie and a _kid_? Not possible. It’s never been possible. Beverly said it herself that there was _no way_ Richie got married. Although that raises an entirely new set of questions about _how_ exactly. Divorced? Widowed? And then the absolute worst possible option, _married?_

“Is she your age?” Eddie asks after a moment, voice shaking. He’s dying to know everything about her, but he restrains himself.

“I think so.”

Eddie nods rapidly, trying desperately to clear the thoughts from his head. Atti raises an eyebrow.

“Is everything alright?”

Eddie clears his throat again and adjusts himself again. “Yes- no, everything’s fine.”

Atti watches him for another moment. “Okay.” He switches the topic to something more pressing. “Did you need surgery?”

“Yep.”

“Does it still hurt?”

“Only a little.”

Atti looks at him then the same way Richie had during those first, blurry few days. His eyes are pained, but he’s smiling. Eddie shakes his head at him.

“What is it?”

Atti inhales through his nose and shakes the weight off of his shoulders.

“I’m just really glad you’re okay, Dad.”

Eddie allows himself a small smile. He breathes in, feeling the air flow in and out of his lungs, feeling the stitches in his stomach stretch.

“Me too.”

There’s a knock at the door and they both look over.  
Richie opens the door, a smile on his face that’s just simpering under a shit-eating grin.

“Hey, Spaghetti-Man.”

Eddie bites back a smile. “Get out of here, I’m talking to my kid.”

“Speaking of kids,” Richie motions to someone in the doorway and Eddie sits up a little too quickly.

Henley jumps into the room with way too much flourish, and Richie beams down at her. Eddie instantly finds the two of them horribly adorable. 

“Henley Tozier makes an entrance!” She throws her arms out and Richie mimics her with enthusiasm. She has a gap between her two front teeth, and dark waves like Richie. 

“I see you’ve recovered.” Atti remarks dryly, pulling his legs up onto the chair with him.

“Says the kid that threw up.” Henley retorts quietly, her tone almost identical. 

“Eds.”

Eddie looks to Richie, eyes still wide. Richie clenches and unclenches his fists, his eyes nervous. 

“Eddie, this is, uh,” Richie motions to Henley, “this is my daughter, Henley.”

Henley looks up at Richie, and then to Eddie, as if she realizes she’s being introduced to him.

“Hens, this is my close friend, Eddie.”

_‘Is that what we are?’_ Eddie thinks to himself as he shoots Richie a dry look. Richie gives him a nervous grin.

“It’s nice to meet you, Henley.”

“Nice to meet you too.” She chirps, her eyes seeming to scan him, curiosity barely disguised there. “Sorry you’re in the hospital.”

Richie sits on the edge of Eddie’s bed and Henley leaps up next to him. Richie’s hand strays towards Eddie’s ankle, and he clasps it through the fabric. Eddie’s eyes flick up to meet his, and Richie smiles.

“I think I’ll deal.”

**New York, 2010**

Atticus is seven when he breaks his arm.

It’s a brisk spring day in April, and Myra’s out on the weekly grocery run, so Atticus is left under his father’s care. They were still living just outside of the city, in a little suburban neighborhood where Myra insisted Atticus could attend such a lovely school. Eddie’s in the kitchen, nursing his third cup of coffee and mulling over papers from work that he has to finish if he ever wants that pay raise. 

He’s in the middle of scribbling down some numbers when he hears the commonplace sound of little feet coming down the hardwood staircase. Then they come closer and louder as they transition into the tile of the kitchen. Two little hands appear in the corner of Eddie’s vision, perched upon the edge of the counter. He smiles fondly and lifts his head.

Atti’s eyebrows are just peeking above the counter. “Daddy, there are kids outside.”

Eddie taps his pen along the counter, head tilted curiously. “Mm-hm?”

Atti looks back up at him and blinks. “Can I go play with them?”

Eddie breathes in sharply and Atti instantly interjects. 

“Please, Daddy! I’ll be safe, I promise! I just wanna watch!”

“Hon, you have toys upstairs.” He sighs, “Plus, I’m working right now, so I can’t be out there to watch you.”

“But I’ll be safe! I promise!”

Eddie huffs and looks towards the windows, where the sun is slanting into the kitchen in thick, bright rays. There are birds chirping, and faintly, the cheery laughter of children. He looks back at Atti, at his pleading eyes and pouting face.

“Fine.”

Atti cheers, clapping his hands together and bouncing.

Eddie shushes him, “Hey. Only for ten minutes, alright?”

Atti nods frantically, already beaming.

“It’s springtime and we don’t want your allergies acting up.”

“Got it.”

“And don’t go rolling around in the grass.” He goes back to his work. “It’s just been cut.”

He looks back down at his papers and Atti comes up and throws his arms around Eddie’s waist. Eddie looks down, surprised by the sudden outburst of affection. They aren’t a hugging family.

“Thanks, Daddy.”

He pauses and blinks. Atti lets go of him and quickly runs out into the hall. A moment later, he hears the glass front door open and shut.

“No problem.” He says to an empty room.

Approximately seven minutes later, he hears screaming.

_A transverse fracture_ , the doctor says, from following the older kids up an oak tree across the street. A branch gave way, Atticus slipped, and fell right down to the sidewalk. Bam. Left arm broken diagonally down the radius and ulna. Nothing that can’t be fixed with a simple, plaster cast. 

But Myra won’t hear of it. She can’t stop fretting over Atti, holding him in her lap, obsessively petting the chunky white appendage he's sporting. The cast won’t be on for more than a few months, but Myra’s already thinking of the consequences. 

What will the other kids think? Will this affect his ability to play sports? Will he have any scars? What are the risks? What do they do if the bone doesn’t heal? _How could you let this happen, Eddie?_

He’s never been so embarrassed or ashamed. She won’t stop sending him disapproving looks, shaking her head and exhaling firmly through her nose. On their way out, she takes Atti’s hand and walks ahead of her husband. She can’t stop asking what happened, why he would let Atti play outside where it was so dangerous, and why with older children who were so rude and brash? 

_‘You were supposed to watch him, Eddie. How can I ever trust you with our child again? You knew it was dangerous. Did you just not care? It’s like you wanted our child to get hurt.’_

Eddie sits through it all and lets her berate him.

Atti’s quite excited about the new accessory.

“It’s like a robot arm, Daddy.” He says to his father that night as Eddie gingerly tucks him into bed. He’s practically afraid to touch his own son now, after the things Myra said. Too many risks.

“It is.” Eddie responds blankly. Then he sits back on the bed and looks at Atti. They both share the same dark hair and eyes. It makes his heart ache. 

“You know, I broke my arm when I was younger too.”

Atti looks up at him with saucer-wide eyes. “Really? How?”

It gives Eddie pause. He furrows his brow and thinks long and hard, but he can’t remember how. All he remembers is the pain of the break, and the cast, smothering and heavy against his skin. And his mother.

“I was not being very safe.” Is the answer he eventually settles on. It’s what Atti should hear anyway. Atti nods and looks down at his cast.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t being safe, Daddy.”

Eddie clicks his tongue. He reaches out and tucks Atti’s hair back behind his ear. “It’s not your fault. I should’ve been watching you. I’m sorry, Atticus.”

Atti just looks back up, smiling. “That’s okay. It was an accident, Daddy.”

Eddie smiles sadly and pulls the blankets up to his son’s chin. “Bedtime.” He says as Atti settles in, nestling into his pillow. 

“Wait!” Atti sits back up just before Eddie flicks the lamp off. He watches quizzically as Atti reaches over and digs a pen out of the drawer in his nightstand.

“You have to sign my cast, Daddy.” He says and holds the pen out to Eddie. Eddie smiles fondly. A memory, faint. It flickers in the recesses of Eddie’s mind, of writing on his cast. No matter how hard he tries, he can’t remember the word.

Dismissing the thought, he takes the pen and uncaps it.

“Loser!”

Beverly looks up from where she’s sweeping stray shards of silvery glass into the dustpan she found downstairs. 

“Shut up!” Atti hisses and Henley responds by pressing her dirty rag to his arm. He jumps away in disgust and shoves her, making her giggle. The Richie in her is starting to show.

The kids are in the middle of scrubbing the rest of the blood out of the bathtub, but Henley can’t stop getting distracted with pestering Atti. It reminds Beverly of the days spent in the clubhouse, with Richie and Eddie constantly finding ways to bitch at each other.

“Hey how’s that bathtub coming?” She asks with a smile as she turns back to her own task.

She hears a distressed noise from Atti. “It _would_ be fine, if Henley could focus for more than one second.”

“I’m just bored. It looks clean to _me._ ”

Another wet slap, and Atti making a disgusted noise. A thump, and Henley hisses in pain. Beverly smirks and dumps the pan full of glass into the garbage can. She stands with a sigh, arching her back to free it of the ache.

“Alright, let me take a look.” She comes over and stands between the two of them, over the tub. It looks spotless to her.

“I’d say that’s a damn good job.”

“See, Atti!”

Atti huffs and crosses his arms. “Clean enough, I suppose. But I’m still not showering here.”

“Fine,” Henley sighs, “whatever, you can shower in our room or something.”

She leaves the bathroom and Beverly watches her go with a laugh, moving over to close the curtains over the open window. Atti gathers the rags and dumps them into the garbage can.

“Alright, you set for the night?”

Atti looks up at her and nods. “Thank you.”

“Of course.” She smiles, he’s polite, like his father. “If you need anything, you can ask any of us, y’know? We’re right down the hall.”

“Yep.”

“Okay, goodnight, Atti.” 

“Goodnight, Beverly.”

Henley’s waiting for her when Beverly leaves Atti’s room, leaning against the railing. She looks up when Beverly comes out, adjusting her glasses and standing straighter.

“Hi.” She pauses and swallows. “Sorry I yelled at you. And thought you were dating my dad.”

Beverly laughs loudly. “You thought I was _dating_ Richie?”

Henley ducks her head bashfully, fiddling restlessly with her fingers. “Yeah.”

Beverly laughs and comes to lean on the railing next to her. “Wow, that’s a first.”

“Yeah. I mean it’s totally dumb now, anyway,” Henley scoffs with a roll of her eyes, “you’re _way_ too pretty and nice to date _my_ dad.”

Beverly smiles with a tilt of her head. “Thank you. I like to think that myself.”

“Yep.” Henley agrees, not a trace of doubt in her voice. “Especially if you’ve known him as long as you have.”

“Well, we lost touch for a long while,” She says, rubbing the place where her wedding ring used to be, thinking of how she has to call her divorce lawyer in the morning, “but I knew him when he was your age.”

“Wow,” Henley says, her eyebrows going up above her glasses, “I didn’t know you knew him for that long. What was he like back then?”

Beverly looks at her. “Like you.”

Henley narrows her eyes and makes a vague noise. “Really?” She mimics Beverly’s tone from earlier, which makes her laugh. 

“Yep. It’s a little spooky, actually.”

“Huh. No one’s ever told me that before.”

“You look like him too.”

Henley laughs and rolls her eyes. “Gee, thanks.”

Beverly chuckles, ruffling Henley’s hair gently. Henley beams are the affection, but a part of it turns sad. 

“I didn’t know my dad had any _girl_ friends.”

“No?”

She shakes her head. Beverly frowns.

“I don’t know a lot of other girls.” She says and then flushes, like she’s embarrassed she’s said it. “I mean, I have my nanny. But it’s like- it’s different.”

“Of course.” Bev says quickly, not wanting her to feel ashamed.

“And I never knew my mom, so,” she trails off, rubbing her neck anxiously and shrugging.

Beverly nods, relating more than Henley knows, “I never knew mine either.”

Henley’s eyes go wide. “Wait, really?”

“She passed when I was really young.” Beverly explains, refraining from mentioning how lucky Henley is for a father like Richie. 

Henley blinks in awe. “We’re matching.”

Beverly grins. “Oh, hell yeah.”

Henley laughs and Bev pets her hair again affectionately.

“Alright, get to bed, it’s late.” She pushes Henley gently, and she rushes towards her and Richie’s room with a giggle. 

“One day, I’m going to dye my hair like yours.” She tells Beverly as she grabs the doorknob.

Beverly smiles and tilts her head fondly.

“You’re gonna dye it red?”

“Mm-hm. Or maybe pink. Or orange. I'll bleach it as much as I have to. I wanna be unrecognizable!”

“Well, call me when you do. I’d like to see that.”

Richie wakes up at half past ten, to muddy sunlight flooding into the room through old curtains. He groans and turns his head deeper into the blankets, sighing the exhaustion out of his bones. He’s got the kind of ache in him that can only come from kicking killer-alien-clown ass. Pushing himself up onto his forearms, he blinks and looks around. Henley’s asleep across from him, curls tossed over her face. She’s still on LA time. He sits up and rubs the crud from his eyes as he grabs his glasses.

Yawning, he stands and hopes the cracking in his spine doesn’t mean anything serious. He dresses quickly in the too-tiny bathroom, trying to fuck around with his hair and make it look better until he ultimately gives up and just heads back out. He pats his jeans for his phone and then notices it on the dresser, still destroyed from sewer water and fighting for his life. Oops. Henley squirms under the blankets and then settles, and he quietly slips out the door.

There’s noise from downstairs, but Bev is upstairs, back towards Richie and her phone pressed to her ear. Richie’s about to call out to her when he sees the distress gouged into her pretty features. She notices him over her shoulder and her expression relaxes and she smiles, waving for him to head down.

Ben’s sitting at the base of the stairs, and Mike and Bill are in the lounge, talking quietly. Richie speeds up when he smells coffee. Ben sees him and stands quickly before seeming to compose himself.

“Good morning.”

“Morning.”

He walks with Richie and stuffs his hands into his pockets. “You seen Bev?”

“Yeah she’s on the phone,” He says and casts a suspicious glance at Ben, “what’s up?”

Ben retrieves his hands only to wring them and he purses his lips. “It’s her divorce lawyer.”

Richie laughs so hard he stops walking, he can’t help it. It’s somehow the funniest thing he’s ever heard.

Finally, he calms down. “Congrats. You’re a homewrecker now.”

Ben thumps him in the arm, but some tension leaves his shoulders in a shuddering laugh. “Shut up.”

Mike hands Richie a cup of coffee when he comes in, and he sighs his thanks.

“Long day, yesterday, hm?” Mike asks while Bill leans back on the couch, grinning like he knows how exhausted Richie was after yesterday. He probably does, since he has a thirteen-year-old back home too.

But he shushes them and points upwards as he moves over to sit at the bar. “She’s asleep, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

Mike chuckles and crosses his legs. Ben takes a seat next to Richie and it gets quiet. Bill leans forward with his forearms on his knees. Richie blinks owlishly behind his glasses.

“What?” His words are muffled behind his coffee cup.

Ben looks at Mike and Bill. They look at each other and then back to Richie.

“Nothing.” Mike says, shaking his head.

“Are you married?” Bill asks.

Richie nearly chokes on his still-hot coffee. Mike elbows Bill and he winces and rubs his side.

“Jesus, Billiam-”

“Suh-sorry.”

Ben hands him a napkin as Richie struggles to compose himself. Bill and Mike become quiet again. 

After a moment, “Divorced?”

Ben sends him a look.

“Oh my god, it’s like you guys have never seen a kid before.”

“We’ve never seen _your_ kid before.” Bill responds before Mike can stop him.

“Okay, it’s not like we’ve met Georgia either,” He sets the coffee down and wipes at his mouth nervously, “no one’s grilling you about _your_ kid.”

“It’s none of our business.” Mike interrupts, his hand going to Bill’s knee when he attempts a quick response.

“No, it’s not.” Richie bites, staring daggers into the coffee cup.

“We were just curious, we’re sorry.” Ben puts a hand on his arm and frowns apologetically. 

Richie softens a little, knowing that they’re not doing anything wrong. They have a right to be curious, just like Henley was. 

“Some things just _happen_.” He says quietly and he can almost feel them look at him.

“You could’ve told us about her.” Ben says gently. “We wouldn’t have thought any different of you or anything.”

Richie hisses through his teeth, looking up at Ben with pursed lips. “I don’t know, guys. Fatherhood sure changes a guy.”

Ben huffs a laugh, letting his hand drop to the counter, the tension easing right out of the air.

“I have to suh-say,” Bill starts, clasping his hands together and looking up at Richie, “it is a little scary to see you as a father.”

Richie leans back, releasing a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. “You’re telling _me._ ”

Mike nods to himself. “I like her.”

Bill and Ben nod their agreement as Richie smiles. Pride blooms, heavy and warm in his chest.

“She’s prime Loser’s Club material.” Bill says and Richie laughs. “She held a knife to my throat when Mike and I found them.”

“Wait, what?”

Then comes the thumping of feet on stairs and a few seconds later, Henley runs in. 

“You didn’t wake me.” She says to him, ignoring the other three men in the room.

“You’re on LA time, you should be sleeping.” He says from behind his cup.

“Sleep’s for the weak. I’m hungry, can we get food?”

“Can you get dressed?”

“Is Atti up yet?” She asks as she tears back to the stairs, nearly running straight into Beverly as she enters the room. She doesn’t look too upset anymore, and she smiles and ruffles Henley’s hair when she runs past. It’s gives Richie pause, for just a moment.

“No, he’s not up.” He calls, then, after considering what he knows she’s about to do, “Hens, leave him alone.”

She ignores him and he hears her footsteps before the door is thrown open upstairs.

“Good morning, Vietnam!” He hears her yell, followed by a flower-chain of curses from Atti. Beverly laughs as she sits down next to Ben.

“It’s like having double the Richie and Eddie’s around.” She says, grinning.

“Oh, luh-lucky us.” Bill says with a smirk, but his voice holds no heat, only happiness.

She’s the most interesting girl he’s ever met, Atti thinks.

It’s a day later, and they’re roaming about the shelves of the bookstore, entertaining themselves after breakfast, when the thought hits him. Henley Tozier is one of the most intriguing girls he’s ever met - not that he knows many. She never stops talking; even when no one’s listening, she’s still talking only to the audience of herself.

She picks up things she finds on the street and is constantly stuffing them into her pockets. Strange looking rocks, lost jewelry, broken pins or buttons, abandoned toy cars; her pockets are full of them by the end of the day. It’s apparently such a common habit that her father even picks things up for her.

And he’s interesting too. It took Atti a whole day to realize he’s the comedian Richie _‘The Trashmouth’_ Tozier. Atti’s only encountered his material briefly, on some television channels, before his mother flicks them off with a frown. She says he didn’t need to be corrupted by that ‘vile, obnoxious comedian’ anyway. Atti didn’t mind, jokes about sex are only so funny after a million times anyway.

Atti doesn’t mind him though, he seems to even be funny when he’s not really trying.

“Hey, Bill.” He says, picking up a book off of a table flipping through it briefly and then holding it up. The cover says _Writing Fiction for Dummies_ in a bold, silly text. “This book’s for you.”

Bill looks up, initially looking interested, and then frowning when he reads the title. Atti smiles.

Henley approaches the table her father’s at and looks through them as Richie laughs at his own joke. Eventually she grabs one and holds it up.

“This one’s for you, Dad.”

_Comedy for Dummies._

Richie’s smile drops, and Bill explodes into laughter as Henley grins and calmly sets the book back down.

“Dude. Who’s fuckin’ side are you on?”

She shrugs and turns away, earning a high five from Bill when she walks by. 

Atti snorts and turns back to the bookshelves. He still has some bus fare left, so he might be able to buy a couple paperbacks. He runs his fingers gently along the spines, taking care to read each one. He spots a familiar name among the jumble of titles and authors.

_William Denbrough._

He had known, of course, Bill was an author. How could he not, when he has every book Bill’s ever written at home in his room. He stares at the name printed in a bold font along the spine of Bill’s book, _The Black Rapids_. Not Atti’s favorite, but a good one nonetheless. He makes sure no one's watching before he picks it up and turns it over in his hands.

In his picture, Bill’s wearing glasses; sleek ones with clear rims that look nice on him. Underneath the picture is a small description that Atti’s practically has memorized by now.

_William Denbrough grew up in Derry, Maine, and has always known he wanted to be a horror writer. He spent most of his childhood-_

“It’s a lie, you know.”

Atti looks up and finds Bill smiling at him, leaning against the bookshelves at the end of the aisle. Atti feels himself go bright red and busies himself with putting the book back on the shelf as Bill approaches him.

“The biography. It’s not true.”

The book falls off the shelf from where Atti had haphazardly placed it. He ignores it, still flushing at his newly exposed fanboy status.

“What’s not true?”

Bill shrugs. “I didn’t always know I wanted to write horror novels.” He picks one off the shelf and flips through it before tapping it against his palm. “My publisher said it would sound better.”

Atti swallows nervously, his hands clenching and unclenching feverishly.

Bill continues, “I knew I wanted to write, but I suh-certainly didn’t see ‘hack writer’ in my future.”

Atti shakes his head a little too quickly. “You’re not a _hack_ writer.”

Bill looks at him slyly. “You’ve read them?”

Atti goes red all the way down his neck. Oops. “I’ve read a couple.”

Bill raises his eyebrows silently and looks back down at the book in his hands.

“I think they’re good.” Atti continues quietly, nodding to himself and staring religiously at the carpeted floor.

Bill snorts next to him. “Except fuh-for the endings?”

Atti looks at him, frowning. “I always like the endings.”

Bill pauses and squints at him. “No shit.”

“Yeah.” Atti says, his confidence growing a little bit. “They always feel real.”

Bill continues to stare, so Atti clears his throat and shifts on his feet. “Happy endings just feel so childish and fake. Your endings are always _real_ , because things don’t turn out the way you want them too. Just like in real life. Happy endings don’t really exist.”

Bill is silent, his eyes narrowed and searching, then he grunts and looks away. Atti swallows, pocketing his hands and looking away too.

“You really think that?”

Atti bites his lip. “I mean, yeah.”

Bill hums, nodding, still turned away.

“I disagree.”

Atti looks up, his brows knitted together. “What?”

Bill turns. “I think you’re wrong.” He repeats simply.

Atti squints up at him. “You _wrote_ them.”

“I know,” Bill nods, “and I think I was wrong too. Happy endings do exist.”

Atti opens his mouth to respond, but then Bill steps closer and points somewhere. Atti leans around and follows his hand.

Beverly’s in the middle of trying on a pair of sunglasses with Henley, the lenses heart shaped and the rims a bright cherry red. Henley looks in the mirror and laughs out loud, her smile almost radiant. Beverly laughs too, her hands coming up to cover her mouth. Henley grabs another pair off of the rack and hands a pair to her dad, who’s watching them with a grin. He puts them on without hesitation, stacked right over his actual glasses. Beverly and Henley lose their minds.

“Bev called her divorce lawyer yesterday morning to get out of an awful marriage she’s been stuck in for several years.” Bill explains. 

Atti watches as Bev pulls Ben over and links her arm through his, pointing at the novelty glasses still on the rack and laughing.

“After the divorce, when all’s said and done, she’s gonna marry Ben. That’s her happy ending.” Bill turns and smiles down at Atti. 

“Oh.” He says, blinking. “How do you know?”

Bill shrugs, like things like this are common knowledge. “I’ve known the t-two of them all my life. Their happy ending is on its way.”

Atti fiddles with his hands. “Right. I mean- I just thought- your writing-”

“It took me a while to learn too; that happy endings exist.” He puts the book back on the shelf, his fingers lingering along the spine, and he smiles gently. “But they do. You just have to be looking in the right places.”

They stand in comfortable silence for a little while, and Bill eventually breathes in, like he’s shaking himself out of the silence, and ruffles Atti’s hair. Atti laughs; because no one’s done that to him for a long time.

“So the next book I’ll publish will be one with a happy ending. I’ll even send you a copy.”

Atti bites back his smile. “I’ll be looking for it.”

Henley’s curled deep in the covers, the pillow hugged to her chest, when she’s woken up. It’s early in the morning, the window behind the drawn curtains just starting to glow with pre-dawn light. She awoke to the covers slipping from her body, exposing her to cold morning air. She shudders and grabs them and pulls them back over herself. The bed shakes in response next to her. Henley sits up, annoyed and turns to squint at her father.

His back’s facing her, curled inwards on himself. His shoulders are trembling slightly. She reaches over and shoves him roughly to get him to release his death grip on the blankets.

“Dad.”

He makes a noise, sounding vaguely pained. She sighs and shoves him again. He twitches, and makes another pained noise as his white-knuckled hands clench around the blankets. She pauses and blinks the sleep from her eyes, moving closer

“Dad?”

She grabs his shoulder and gets up on her knees. His face is obscured by the blankets he’s pulled up to his ears. He’s whimpering into them, face twisted in discomfort. He’s still shaking.

“Dad?” She shakes him, harder this time.

“ _Eddie_.” He says out loud, like he’s conscious. His eyes are still closed, his brows furrowed. “Eddie?”

“Dad, it’s me. Wake up.” She begs and he says the name a few times more, his voice breaking and growing louder each time.

She shoves with all her might. “Dad!”

“Eddie!” He yells and sits up violently, limbs flailing, knocking Henley back against the mattress. When she looks up, she sees his face is wet with tears. He’s breathing heavily, eyes wide and fear-stricken, and he keeps looking around the room like he doesn’t know where he is. Finally, his eyes land on Henley.

“What happened?” His voice is rough, too loud and hoarse for the quiet room.

“You...were dreaming.” She whispers as she sits up. “A nightmare, I think.”

He blinks, and a couple tears fall. He must feel them, because he instantly starts wiping them away with a fearful vigour and sniffing, his head ducked.

She scoots closer, her hand coming up to his trembling shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, no, I’m fine.” He mutters, still wiping his cheeks. He offers a weak, watery smile. “I’m fine. Just a bad dream. Sorry to scare you.”

He pulls her close and kisses her forehead and then lays back down without another word, his body going still. She continues sitting up, wide awake, and looks down at him. He sniffs occasionally, wiping at his nose or his still-wet eyes.

“You kept saying Eddie’s name.” She whispers to him.  
A full minute passes. Birds begin to sing outside in the trees. The sky is glowing a faint, blushing pink. Eventually, Richie speaks.

“I know.”

The nightmare comes again the next night.

He’s standing at a funeral, the rows of chairs empty, the casket at the front of the room open and waiting. When Richie looks down, he’s covered in blood that presumably isn’t his. It feels hot and sticky on his skin. He doesn’t even have to look in the coffin to know who’s in it.

“Why did you say that to him?”

Richie turns, feeling like he’s moving through water. Atticus is standing behind him, tears carving rivers down his face, his lips trembling. Richie’s breath is labored, like he’s been running, but he doesn’t know why.

“Wha- what?”

“Why did you tell him he was brave?” Atti’s voice breaks, like a fragile porcelain plate. “You told him he could do it and now he’s dead.”

Richie shakes his head. The sadness and anxiety is welling up in him like a clogged sink, and soon it will start to puddle and overflow.

“No, no, I didn’t.”

Atti’s voice gets louder, his eyes get angrier. “But you did. You told him he could do it and then he never came home. You _killed_ him.” His teeth look a little too sharp when he bares them.

Richie swallows down the lump in his throat. “No. Eddie’s alive.”

“He’s not. You killed him and let him rot beneath Neibolt. He’s still down there, all alone. We didn’t even have a body to bury.”

By the time Richie sees the yellow in Atti’s eyes, it’s too late. “You’re not real.”

Atti smiles, the skin around his mouth splitting. “Aren’t I?”

Richie wakes with a start, almost kicking Eddie in the face where he’s on his knees, shaking him awake. Eddie reaches up and puts his hand on Richie’s neck when he sees he’s awake.

“Richie, hey.” He says, as Richie blinks and tries to figure out where the hell he is. “Hey, are you okay?”

Fuck, he’s in Eddie’s room at the hospital. He must’ve fallen asleep in the chair. “Jesus, yeah, I’m fine.” He sticks a hand under his glasses to wipe at his wet eyes. Eddie’s still pressing his palm to the junction of his neck and shoulder; it feels grounding and safe. 

“You were having a nightmare.” Eddie tells him, his hand still on Richie’s knee. Richie tried not to focus on it too much.

“Hell yeah, I was.” He clears his throat and tries to get the pounding of his heart to stop. He puts his hand over the one of Eddie’s that’s on his knee and pats it.

“Yeah,” Eddie mutters as he stands shakily, “I have them too.”

It’s only then that Richie realizes Eddie’s out of bed and on the floor. “Eddie, what the hell, man!” He says as he grabs Eddie’s arms and stands. “You should be in bed!”

“I’m fine.” Eddie grunts but he’s having some trouble standing, gripping Richie by his elbows and putting all of his weight against him. “You were the one that looked like you were going to be sick.”

“Eds, I had a bad dream,” Richie says as he helps Eddie back into bed. “You have a fucking hole punched through your chest. Two completely different things.”

“I can still walk, jackass.” He pulls the blankets back up over himself, settling into the bed with a sigh. “They even let me go to the bathroom by myself.”

Richie mouths a _‘wow’_ and Eddie punches his arm. When Richie hesitates next to the bed after Eddie’s all settled, Eddie sighs in frustration and pats the bed. Richie blinks at him stupidly.

“Do I need to spell it out for you?”

Richie grins as he sits down and squirms onto the bed next to Eddie, absolutely buzzing with the proximity.

“And take your shoes off- God, were you born in a barn?”  
“God, you’re so high-maintenance all the damn time.” Richie bends to take his shoes off, throwing them onto the floor and then turning back to Eddie. “Happy?”

Eddie makes a face and shrugs. Richie continues to squirm, trying not to read into the way Eddie may or may not have leaned into him.

“Jesus, this bed’s uncomfortable. How do you sleep on this shit?”

“You get used to it, if you stop fucking moving so much.” Eddie elbows him. “Besides, I’ll be leaving in a few days anyway.”

Richie looks at him. “No shit, really?”

“Yeah.” One of Eddie’s hands goes to his stomach, his fingers running gently over the edges of the bandage through his gown. “They said I’ve healed up pretty well.”

“Not surprising, in this fucked up magic-town.” Richie looks down at his palm, where the scar that he’d been carrying for the past twenty-seven years has disappeared.

“You think It has something to do with it?” Eddie doesn’t have to elaborate for Richie to know what he means. 

Richie squints at him. “With you healing? Fuck no, man, that’s all _you_! That son of a bitch has nothing to do with it.”

Eddie snorts and ducks his head. “Sure, thanks.”

Richie shakes his head, jostling Eddie a bit with his shoulder. “Whatever, who cares about the why or how, anyway? You’re healing, aren’t you? That’s what I’m happy about.”

The corners of his mouth turn up just slightly, making the bandage on his cheek wrinkle. His eyes flicker up to Richie’s for just a moment, but it’s long enough to make his heart flutter like he’s thirteen instead of forty. 

“Thanks.” Eddie clasps his hands together and lets his head fall onto the pillow, his eyes wandering up to the ceiling. Richie does the same, folding his hands over his chest. They sit in silence for a few moments, with Richie trying not to notice the feeling of Eddie’s shoulder next to his or how their hips are touching, and then Eddie speaks.

“Thanks. For everything.”

Richie blinks, and turns his head. Eddie turns too, and their noses almost touch. “What do you mean?”

Eddie looks down, then back up at him, his eyes a little softer than they were before. “You saved my life.”

“What?” Richie barks, and then sits up, because their mouths are way too close to be having this conversation right now. “Are you kidding?”

“Uh, no?” Eddie looks at him with disbelief and then sits up after. “You saved my life, Rich.”

Richie blinks, shame and anger and guilt welling up in him, threatening to explode. He thinks of Dream-Atticus, of his eyes dyed an angry red with tears that coursed down his face every time he blinked.

Would Atti have blamed him if Eddie didn’t make it out?

“Jesus, dude, I didn’t save your life.” He rubs his eyes, trying to get the image to go away. “If anything, you saved me.”

“No, I did not.” Eddie scoffs, actually sounding a little mad.

“Eddie, you’re so fucking stupid. You saved me from the Deadlights, you’re a fucking badass, are you joking?”

“Yeah, and then like, less than a minute later, I was fucking impaled!”

“Fucking exactly! So it’s my fucking fault anyway!”

Eddie stops, whatever he was about to say dying on his tongue. “No, it’s not.” He says gently, leaning forward. Richie looks away, hiding his shame behind a watery laugh.

“I mean, you might not feel like it, but it is. You know, technically.”

“Richie, knock it _off,_ none of this is your fault.” Eddie motions to himself and it makes Richie square his shoulders and close his eyes because he doesn’t want to imagine it.

“I was just such a fucking idiot.” He laughs, his voice going thick with emotion. He clenches his fists in his lap. “I really thought I could help. I thought - well, I didn’t know what I thought, I just wanted that fucking clown to die. And then I was in the Deadlights - and-”

He _knows_ Dream-Atti isn’t that far off of what would have really happened had Eddie died.

He knows because he _saw_ it.

He didn’t remember at first, all he remembered from the Deadlights was mindless, numbing static. And then every time he closed his eyes, images appeared from that static. 

Atti would have arrived in Derry sooner, only a few days after Neibolt. He would have asked anyone, begged anyone for answers. Eventually, he would have found the Inn, and he would have found them. Just the five of them, and one empty room.

Atti would have screamed. He would have screamed so loud it would wake Richie from his nightmares every time he had them. He would have screamed and cried and blamed everyone, even if the only thing that took Eddie was It. 

All because Richie wanted Eddie to know how brave he was.

Richie blinks and covers his eyes with his hands. “It's just- you got so _close_ , Eds. You don’t even know how close you got. I was so _scared_.”

“Woah, Rich- hey.” Eddie suddenly jumps into action the second Richie’s voice breaks. 

“I’m fine-” Richie protests even though Eddie’s already up on his knees and grabbing his shoulders.

“It’s alright, Richie.”

“Eds, I’m fine-” 

But Eddie’s already hugging him, fitting his arms snugly over Richie’s shoulders. Richie hesitates, then places a hand on Eddie’s waist, then another on his back, feeling the ripples of the bandages beneath. 

“I’m okay.” He mumbles into Eddie’s shoulder. 

“Mm-hm.” Eddie hums into his hair. He’s rubbing Richie’s back, and it’s making every inch of his skin go tingly and fuzzy. His whole body is warm and flush against Richie and it feels grounding and safe, like he wasn’t meant to be anywhere else other than in Eddie’s arms.

“I’m alive.” Eddie says, propping his chin up on Richie’s head so he can talk properly.

“I know.” Richie mumbles weakly, his eyes still closed. Eddie puts a hand on the nape of his neck, and leans back. Richie clears his throat and pulls away, the air between them suddenly cold. 

“Sorry.” Richie mumbles, wiping at his face and already pulling out of Eddie’s arms.

“Don’t worry about it.” Eddie mumbles, letting his hand fall away from Richie’s neck. Richie shakes off the feeling of Eddie holding him and swings his legs over the side of the bed.

“Shit, what time is it?” He says as he hurriedly pulls his shoes on. Eddie makes no attempt to answer him. “I should get going, Henley will be waiting for me.”

He feels Eddie put a hand on his shoulder. “You could stay, if you wanted to.”

Richie looks over his shoulder at him. Eddie’s eyes flicker away and he removes his hand, planting it shyly on the mattress. Richie feels his face get redder.

“I mean, do you want me to stay?”

Eddie rolls his eyes and looks away, his frustration fiercely endearing as always. Richie licks his lips, turns around fully, and tries again.

“Eds, do-”

“Jesus,” Eddie huffs, “I’m so sick of us dancing around this.”

Richie swears he can’t breathe. It’s like his throat is full of cotton, warm and filling and suffocating. “Around what?”

Eddie actually glares at him. He doesn’t need to speak for Richie to know what he’s talking about. He’s talking about the tension, wound tight like a coil, the tension that’s been between them since they first made eye contact in that stupid restaurant.

Richie swallows. “If you’re so sick of it, then maybe you should do something about it.”

Eddie’s face gets impossibly redder and then he leans forward so quick Richie can’t even process it before he’s kissing him. 

He’s kissing him hard, his hand fisted into Richie’s collar and he can feel the heat that’s rolling off of Eddie in waves. Richie is so overwhelmed, he can barely even process the warmth of it, or the way Eddie exhales sharply against his cheek, or how he’ll probably have a bruise along the bridge of his nose from his glasses.

He pulls back as quick as he’d first leaned in and stares him down, challenging him. Richie thinks he says something but he can’t hear a thing over the blood rushing in his ears. Eddie’s hand is still gripping his collar, threatening to rip it. Richie closes his eyes, sweet, sticky pleasure curling up his spine.

“Oh my _God_ , Eds.”

“You’re a fucking idiot.” Is Eddie’s response, and Richie grins. He keeps talking as Richie brings his legs back up onto the bed and moves closer. He keeps talking even when Richie puts a hand on the back of his head, going on and on about how _‘fucking dumb’_ Richie is for _‘not doing anything sooner’_ and _‘godammit Richie get your shoes off the bed’_ but he doesn’t hear a fucking thing. He doesn’t stop talking until he puts his other hand flat on Richie’s chest and leans in to kiss him.

It’s not like the last one, cause Richie’s still a rubber-band ball of nerves. He puts his mouth on Eddie’s and just kind of keeps it there for a moment before Eddie leans the rest of the way in. They kiss briefly and then pull apart again, breaths coming in quicker, nervous succession. Richie moves in again, and this time he doesn’t pull away after the first one. He kisses him and then he kisses him again, and again, and again. Eddie releases his grip on Richie’s collar and eases his hand down his bicep instead. With some maneuvering, Richie gets his hands under Eddie’s arm and pulls him closer. 

“Careful.” Eddie hisses softly when Richie puts his hands a little too firmly on his back.

“Careful.” Richie echoes dumbly.

Eddie laughs into a kiss and Richie follows him, leaning forward to accommodate. Eddie cups his face between his hands and kisses him tenderly, so tender that Richie thinks he melts right there, right against Eddie’s chest. 

“We shoulda been doing this forever ago.” Richie barely gets out into Eddie’s mouth. He hears Eddie laugh.

“Yeah.” He breathes, hot and damp.

“I never thought,” Richie says between kisses, “I didn’t think you-”

“I do.” Eddie shushes him.

“Well I know that now.” Richie says into Eddie’s jaw, managing to roll his eyes. “I’m never gonna forget it. I wanna do this for the rest of my life. I’m never gonna stop-”

“Jesus, Richie, shut the fuck up.”

“Okay.” 

Eddie kisses him eagerly, making sure Richie can barely breathe, let alone speak. They stay like that for a while, and Richie thinks he could do this forever, make out like a couple of horny teens. He hasn’t done this in so long, and he never wants to do it with anyone else but Eddie. 

He doesn’t know how long they go at it, but soon, Eddie pries his mouth away, breathing heavily. “Okay, we- we should stop.”

Richie shushes him and leans back in. Eddie puts a hand over his mouth and kisses his forehead and that almost makes up for it. Almost.

“I’m serious.”

“Why?” Richie whines, tightening his hold on Eddie and plunging his face into his neck.

“Because, the nurses will be in with my night meds soon, you pervert.” He wriggles out of Richie’s arms and slides back to sit up against the pillows. Richie groans and tilts his head back

“Eds. Eddie-Spaghetti. You’re _killing_ me here.”

Eddie wrinkles his nose at him. “You'll survive, you dramatic bitch.”

“You can’t just make out with me and then tell me to _leave_.”

Eddie snorts, rolling his eyes.

“Seriously Eddie, I don’t know what kind of playboy you were back home, but this ain’t gonna cut it with me, babe.”

Eddie leans forward and puts both of his hands on Richie’s neck. Richie grips his wrist and stares back up at him, heart jackhammering against the firm wall of his ribcage.

“Trust me, once I’m out of this hospital, it’s _over_ for you, Tozier.”

All of the breath leaves him at once. Richie groans again and Eddie laughs raucously.

“Oh, Eddie, I’m gonna die!” Richie surges forward to kiss him again, one hand automatically going to Eddie’s waist. Eddie entertains him and kisses him back, if only for a moment.

He pulls back and they stay there for a second, noses touching, breathing the same air. 

“Henley’s probably waiting.” Eddie says eventually, his breath on Richie’s mouth.

“Yeah.” Richie says and kisses him.

“I’ll be here tomorrow.” Eddie says, and then is smothered by another kiss. “And the day after that,” another kiss, “and the day after-”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Richie stands, stretching. “I’m going.”

Eddie leans back, watching him with his bottom lip between his teeth. Richie watches him back as he pulls on his jacket.

“I hope you know I’m never gonna stop kissin’ that mouth of yours now.” He tells him, smiling, and the leans down and kisses his cheek to prove his point. 

“Don't I know it.” Eddie snorts, fiddling with the hospital blanket. “It’s about time.”

“Hey, man, you could’ve kissed me the second you saw me and I would’ve gone with it.”

“Okay, _you’re_ the one who wouldn’t grow a pair and do anything.”

“Well, duh, you’ve always been braver than me.”

Eddie bites his lip. “Only for you.”

Richie smiles, and takes Eddie’s chin in his hand and leans down to kiss him again. 

“Night.”

“Night, jerkweed.”

Richie bites the inside of his cheek and reluctantly walks backwards towards the door. He’s so caught up in looking at Eddie that he almost walks right into the nurse when she comes in with his meds. It makes Eddie laugh though, so he’s not too embarrassed.

He has to physically stop himself from skipping out of the hospital.

Atti has his legs crossed beneath him, reading a book Bill recommended to him when Henley finally comes out of the ice cream parlor.

“I got you one, even though you said no.”

He looks up at her, squinting in the harsh sunlight even with his ball cap on. She's wearing full length overalls despite the heat and holding a plain vanilla cone out to him. He _had_ said no, since dairy always made him a little queasy. But it is hot as hell out.

“Thanks.” He says and takes it happily. She smiles, obviously satisfied.

“You’re welcome.” She starts to lick at her cone, a double scoop with chocolate chunks in it that’s already starting to drip. 

He tucks the book back into his bag and stands. It’s a beautiful day, but it’s so humid that his binder is uncomfortably suctioned to his chest. It’s the kind of day where back home, there was nothing much to do other than lay on his bed with the air conditioner cranked all the way up. But Henley wouldn’t let him stay in his room, as usual, and she tugged him out of the Inn for a day on the town.

So far, he doesn’t hate it

“How’s the book, nerd?” She asks as she shoves her glasses back up her sweaty nose. 

“Good,” He says, licking up the side of his ice cream. He hasn’t had any in a long time, and the flavor is sweet and foreign on his tongue. “Bill bought it for me.”

“Why?”

Atti shrugs. “He’s an author. And I like to read, I guess?”

Henley snorts. “Can’t relate.”

Atti looks at her as they hurriedly cross the street. “You don’t like to read?”

“Not really.”

“Why?” 

She shrugs, swallowing down her ice cream with surprising ease. Atti’s already developing a painful burning freeze in the back of his throat.

“Too many words for me. Never could focus for that long. I like movies better.”

Atti wrinkles his nose. Of course she would; she's from LA anyway. A biker whizzes past them, spokes whirring and buzzing like some sort of huge bug.

“Now,” she continues, “I could watch movies for _days_. I could write _novels_ about the beauty in film, and I don’t even write, Atti.”

He scoffs and she continues.

“Seriously! What an invention, am I right? When people saw the very first moving picture - the one of the train - they fled the theatre in fear! Isn’t that amazing?”

He bites his lip, feeling guilty.

“There’s nothing like taking the entertainment in live plays and in theatres, and- and putting it onto something like film, it was groundbreaking and then when people really-”

“Before you continue I should say something,” he cuts her off and breathes in, preparing for her disbelief, “I hate movies.”

She physically stops. He takes a few steps, then stops and looks back at her in fear. She’s staring at him, mouth in a flat line, her ice cream forgotten, dripping down her hand.

“What do you mean you hate movies.” She asks, but it doesn’t sound like a question.

He stutters, nervous under her withering stare, “I just- they’re so- so... _fake._ ”

“Fake?” She asks, loudly, making the old woman that’s walking by look at the two of them quizzically.

“Yeah.” He makes an apologetic face, tilting his head. “Sorry.”

“Wha- what does that even mean ‘fake’? You mean like CGI? ‘Cause, I’m with you, I like practical effects more, but-”

“No like, the way they tell stories?” 

She shakes her head, not following.

“Literature is just so much more honest than movies, y’know? Movies always have this romantic way of telling stories-”

They stop to wait at a street corner for the light to turn green. 

“-when life is never romantic. It’s messy and painful, it’s like false advertising, almost. They romanticize the most awful aspects of life, like breakups and divorces- even death!”

The light turns green, and they walk. Henley rolls her eyes at him and scoffs, “Man, why do you say _romantic_ like it’s a dirty word?”

“You know, glamourized! Sugar-coated! Hollywood always presents everything like it’s good! The world isn’t this picture-perfect place, Henley.” He switches hands to avoid the drippings of his cone.

“Well, duh, it’s not. That’s why film is wonderful. It shows the most beautiful parts of human nature, in all its messed up glory.”

“Well, it never comes across that way.” He switches hands again and licks his fingers like Henley's doing. His mother would kill him if she saw him being so unhygienic, but strangely, he can’t make himself care.

“Because you’re not watching that way.” She tells him. “Trust me Atti, I’m Los Angeles born and raised, I know film.”

He smiles, giddy and buzzing with sugar. “Fine, then. Recommend me some movies.”

Someone honks loudly, and they watch a person run across the crosswalk, just barely missing the hood of a car.

“Fine! You want gritty?”

“Yup.”

“Alright.” She smacks her lips as she thinks. “Try David Fincher’s _Seven_ , with Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman. I could write essays about the meaning in that film.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Okay, picture this,” she runs up ahead of him and holds her hands out, like she’s setting the scene, “a neo-noir thriller, set in a city abandoned by God himself.”

Atti giggles and she shushes him seriously.

“Two detectives, more alike than they realize, set out to find a mysterious serial killer. His motif? The seven deadly sins.” She finishes with a flourish.

“Hence the name.”

“Hence the name,” Henley nods. “Fantastic movie. Wonderfully complex and meaningful plot. A deep look into human nature and belief.”

They pass the town square, with a giant Paul Bunyan statue looming in the center. People mill about the square, sitting on benches and riding bikes.

“Tell me about another one. Something scary.”

Henley’s eyes flash with excitement. She finishes off her cone and wipes her sticky hands on her overalls. “Now you’re speaking my language, dude.”

They turn a corner, heading out of the main street. The cicadas buzz and drone lazily in the trees. The heat is stifling.

“Bill might be a great horror writer but there’s _nothing_ like a good ol’ scary movie. Did you know _‘Scary Movie’_ was the original title for Wes Craven’s _Scream_? Now _that’s_ a film. It took the entire genre and turned it completely on its head! It was so new and fresh and people flocked to it!

“Speaking of new and fresh! Tell me you’ve seen _Halloween_. Nevermind, don’t tell me, I don’t want to be disappointed. That film practically _started_ the slasher genre! Oh, and _The Blair Witch Project!_ Forget _Paranormal Activity, Blair Witch_ started the found-footage genre! Three absolutely groundbreaking films!”

The trees cast doppled, green sunlight across the empty road. Atti finishes swallowing down his ice cream cone. “I haven’t seen any of them.”

“Atti.” She sounds nearing the verge of tears. “How are we gonna be friends if you haven’t seen Scream? That movie practically raised me!”

“Why am I not surprised.”

“Okay, one of these days I’m going to introduce you to the world of film. I’ll make a film lover out of you yet, my dude.”

“If my mom found out I ever watched even one slasher flick, I think she might have a stroke.”

“Well, lucky you, ‘cause she’s not here.” She flashes a toothy grin, and Atti snorts.

“I feel like you’re corrupting me!”

“If that’s what it takes to educate you! Fuckin’ _‘I hate movies’_ ass-”

Atti laughs so hard he doesn’t even notice Henley stop walking. It takes him a full five seconds to realize, and then he turns and finds her staring intently at a sign posted on the side of the road.

“What is it?” He asks, still laughing under his breath as he goes over to stand next to her. The signs posted on a metal fence, with low hanging branches and bushes growing through and around it.

_No swimming or diving permitted in this area_

“Hold on a second.” She mutters and grips the fence with one hand. The city must not have tried too hard, because it isn’t that high; she lifts her leg over the top and deftly slides over.

“Where are you going?” He hisses and after a moment, does the same and follows her. The road becomes empty again as they slip into the forest.

It’s overgrown with grasses and brush, but it’s obvious there used to be a path here. The forest floor is covered in pine needles, branches and fallen leaves, and Atti has a hard time navigating around them to keep up with Henley.

“Where the hell are we going?” He asks again, to no avail. A stray branch slaps at his knees.

Eventually, the trees clear and they reach a cliff. A cliff, and a massive expanse of water at least a hundred feet below. The water is bluish-green in color, and the sunlight dances across its glassy surface. The shore is rocky, spreading into tall, thick grasses and rocky cliffs.

Henley walks right up to the edge and peers down at the glistening quarry. A few chunks of gravel crumble under her feet and topple off the edge.

“Woah.”

“Woah.” Atti echoes, his steps toward the edge smaller and more hesitant. The dirt crunches audibly under his sneakers.

“This is so cool.”

“Yeah,” Atti leans over the edge and looks down. The drop is dizzying. 

He hears Henley drop her backpack to the ground and he looks over at her. She’s smiling. “Feel like swimming?”

He almost doesn’t believe her. “Um, no way?”

“Oh, c’mon!” She begins to toe off her sneakers.

“Are you for real?”

“Yeah!” She reaches down to pull her boldly-striped socks off. “It’s hot as balls out!”

“Dude, that water looks dirty as shit, it’s probably got all kinds of bacteria in it!” Atti looks back at the water and then at Henley. She’s slipping the straps of her overalls off of her skinny shoulders.

He looks away.

“C’mon, Atti! Live a little! It’ll be fun!”

“Uh-uh. There was a news story - just last week, I think - about this, like, brain-eating amoeba that gets inside you from- from dirty water! This girl- it got into her brain through her nose- through her _nose_ , Henley!”

Henley’s overalls drop to the dirt. “Oh my god, why are the chances of that, one in one-trillion? Don’t you want to have fun?” 

He’s religiously not looking at her. He’s sweating, and he’s not sure if it’s because of the heat anymore. Henley finally sheds her t-shirt 

“Dude.” 

He glances at her. 

“It’s like you’ve never seen a girl before.” 

He glares at her. “You’re _literally_ in your underwear.” 

She rolls her eyes and puts her hands on her hips. “It’s _literally_ not any different from a bathing suit.” 

He can’t argue with that, so he frowns and looks away. 

“Oh my god, don’t make this weird,” she sighs, irritated, “I’m gay, dude, it’s not like I’m gonna jump you.” 

He’s not even shocked by the confession. He’s just flustered that he, Atticus Kaspbrak, is standing near a girl in her not-really bathing suit. It doesn’t even matter if she’s gay. 

“Whatever, I’m still not gonna swim.” 

“Fine, I’ll just have a great time by myself then.” She shrugs and walks towards the edge. “You stay up here and be the sheltered little mama’s boy you are.” 

“There’s nothing wrong with being cautious.” 

She groans, “Okay, whatever, I just don’t dream of living behind a closed door. Forgive me if I want to have a little fun.” 

He shifts on his feet, staring her down. It’s not weird to look at her anymore, the awkwardness has subsided. 

“I couldn’t swim, even if I wanted to.” 

She raises an eyebrow at him, confused. “Oh, you don’t know how?” 

He rolls his eyes and crosses his arms. “No.” 

She cocks her head, “Then, why-” 

“I’m trans, Henley.” 

She blinks stupidly. For a split moment, he thinks she’ll laugh. “Okay?” She says instead, “I don’t care?” 

He scoffs. He shouldn’t even try to explain it to her. “Oh my god, it’s not about- just, nevermind.” 

She pauses. “Look, I really don’t care. You can even leave your clothes on if you want. Or I can take off my glasses- I’m practically blind without them-” 

“No, it’s fine. I don’t want to swim.” He looks away, suddenly aflame in the horrible awareness of how he looks or sounds, of the insecurities he just spilled to her. 

But she shrugs, clearly indifferent. “Okay, well, I’m gonna swim. You can stay up here, and I’ll be out in a few minutes.” 

She takes a few steps backwards, preparing for the jump, and his heart begins to beat like he’s the one about to leap. It happens in slow motion; she braces her arms and legs and then runs. She kicks up some dirt with her heels, and her hair whips out behind her, like a trail. She runs towards the edge and then the ground disappears beneath her bare feet and she _leaps._

Atti rushes to the edge as soon as she disappears, looking down just in time to see her splash into the water, rupturing the previously calm surface. The water settles back down, and he waits with held breath, staring at the spot where the water enveloped her. 

A moment later, she breaches, just a pale speck in the vast expanse of the quarry water. He laughs, and she raises her arms and cheers. He extends his arm out and waves, and she waves back. He can tell she’s grinning, even all the way down there. 

He sits down on the edge and watches her swim around. She seems completely unbothered, grinning deliriously as she swims in nonsensical patterns. He wonders what it must be like to be so cool. He wonders what it must be like to never be afraid. 

Scooting backwards so she can’t see him, he removes his backpack and places it next to her rumpled clothes. Next, are his shoes. He toes them off and then pulls his socks off, stuffing them in their respective sneakers for safe keeping. Next he stands. Okay, it has to happen. He wants to have fun; to go swimming with her. 

He looks around, paranoid, and then pulls his shorts off quickly, trying not to focus on it too much. He readjusts his boxers before he folds the shorts and places them on top of his sneakers, above the ground. He grips the hem of his shirt and steadies himself. 

After folding his shirt and placing them the same way he’d placed his shorts, he stands and stretches. He looks around. No one. Just the trees and bugs and the dirt and maybe some birds. He sticks a finger under the edge of the binder to wipe away the sweat that’s collected there. 

Going back over to the edge, he looks down. The water looks cold and refreshing. Henley’s below the surface, and then she pops up again, brushing the hair from her face before going back under. He breathes in the warm summer air, smells the dirt and the sun and the leaves, and steps back. 

He takes another step. Step after step, just like Henley had done. He breathes in, and braces his arms, just like she had done. He rips the ball cap off his head, the dark hair beneath damp with sweat, and tosses it to the ground. Bouncing on the balls of his feet, he blinks away the nerves in his stomach. 

And he runs. 

The ground leaves his feet and just for a second, he thinks he _flies._

And then he’s falling, falling, falling, and the water rushes up to meet him. It knocks the air from his lungs and the cold engulfs him. His eyes are closed and he’s absolutely alone, his ears ringing, darkness enveloping him, water encasing every part of him, shielding him away. 

And then he breaches the surface, hair slicked back against his head, and he’s gasping for air. The sun reaches out to him with its golden light and he’s warm again. The ringing in his ears fades until he can hear Henley cheering and clapping. He laughs, grinning, and feeling like he’s shining. 

“And he sticks the landing!” She shrieks, cupping her hands around her mouth and whooping. He follows her lead, tilting his head back and screaming, hearing his own voice echo back to him off the jagged rocks. 

“How you feeling, soldier?” She swims towards him, her glasses beaded with water, like the kind of morning dew drops you see on flower petals. His skin feels slick and smooth under the water. 

He’s breathing heavily, and he’s grinning. 

“I feel great.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments are appreciated!! :) <3


	4. loose lips

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _we’re just dancing, we’re just hugging,_   
>  _singing, screaming, kissing, tugging_   
>  _on the sleeve of how it used to be_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mild smut in this chapter! see tags for content!!

“Honestly, Eds, I think you make it work.”

“Shut the fuck up, assbag.”

Richie grins from where he’s leaning against the passenger door, watching Eddie struggle with the cane on his way to the car.

“Seriously, you’re giving me eighty-year-old, silver fox kind of vibes.”

Eddie’s glare is so powerful Richie’s surprised it doesn’t strike him down right there, in the pick-up lane outside the hospital.

“Fuck off,” Eddie growls as Richie opens the car door for him, “I should’ve asked Mike to come get me.”

“Aw, Spaghetti-Head, you wound me.”

Another glare. “Just get me to the Inn, jackass.”

Richie obliges, getting in the driver's seat, but instead of putting the car in drive and finally pulling away from that wretched hospital, he leans over and kisses the corner of Eddie’s pout. Eddie scowls through it, and continues scowling when Richie leans back.

“Oh, don’t be like that.”

Eddie huffs, his cane gripped like a vice in his lap.

“Seriously, I think the cane’s cute.”

Eddie punches his arm the way he used to when they were thirteen - but, damn, forty-year-old Eddie is a lot stronger. Richie barks a laugh and rubs his arm as he puts the car in drive. 

“I need the cane to _walk_ , you dumbass. Would you prefer I stay in the hospital?” Eddie growls, crossing his arms. Despite his remarkable healing, Eddie still couldn’t walk for long distances on his own yet, so the doctors advised a cane. It was either that or continue to stay in the hospital.

Eddie obviously chose the cane, despite the inevitable teasing from Richie.

“I know! I’m glad you’re out, honestly, Eds, I’ve always had a thing for older men-”

“Never fucking mind,” Eddie sighs, pursing his lips into a frown. Richie chuckles, taking his hand in his and intertwining their fingers. Only when he turns to look out the window, does Eddie allow himself a smile.

By the time Richie finally gets a new phone, his manager must think he’s overdosed in some hotel in a foreign country. He has a total sum of about a hundred work emails and calls sitting in his inbox, and none of them are ones he wants to deal with right now. That’s a problem for future Richie to deal with.

There is one number he doesn’t recognize in the sea of missed calls from assistants and managers and journalists - one that isn’t saved on his phone. Interested, he presses play and listens to the voicemail.

_“Hey Richie, it’s Stan-”_

He doesn’t even bother listening to the rest, practically ripping the phone away from his ear and rushing to redial the number. 

Stanley Uris picks up the phone after the third ring.

“Richie.” He says, sounding surprised. “Hey.”

Richie grins, his throat thickening at the sound of his voice, even though it’s so great to hear him. 

“Stan the Man Uris.”

Stan huffs a laugh, sounding a little choked up too. “God. The fucking nicknames.” They both laugh, happy and loud into their phones. “How have you been?”

“Good, I’ve been good,” Richie pauses before he continues, “how are you?”

He hears Stan breathe in. “I’m good, Rich. The doctors released me yesterday, I’m finally home with Patty and the kids, and-”

“Woah, _kids_? Like, plural?” Richie has known about Patty; Mike had shown him a picture from social media. She looked kind and completely deserving of a guy like Stan, and Richie has assumed they must have children. But it’s still a shock to hear it from Stan himself.

Stan sighs in the way he does when he’s pretending to be annoyed but he’s actually smiling. “Yeah. Twins.”

“Jesus, Stan.” Richie rubs a hand over his eyes. “You and your wife are saints.”

“Yeah, they're the best.” He responds. Richie can practically hear Stan smiling through the phone.

“Can’t imagine how you do it. I’ve got my hands full with just the one.”

Stan hums. “Henley, right?”

Richie smiles. “Yeah.”

“Still mad she’s not named after me, but, it’s fine I guess-”

“Okay, smartass, which one of the twins is named after me?”

“Neither, but Ari does get called a dick by his sister sometimes.”

“Well, children can be cruel.” Richie chuckles as he lays down on the bed, grinning at the ceiling. Stan snorts and chuckles, and then they both sit in silence for a few moments, each enjoying the other’s company.

“I’m really happy you’re okay, Stan.”

He can almost hear the smile in Stan’s voice. “Me too.”

They’ve kissed exactly twice since their make out session in the hospital. Not that Eddie’s counting or anything.

They kissed the morning after, very briefly, just a tentative brush of their lips as Richie sat down next to him before the others came in, and he kissed Eddie’s cheek in the car yesterday morning. Both of those could hardly be classified as actual kisses; especially not after that first passion-fueled collision of their mouths. And it’s quite literally killing Eddie.

When he was with Myra, even in the best of times, he didn't need any attention. They were good like that; neither of them needed much affection to keep the marriage going, and he could convince himself that he loved her because of how easy that came to them. So he doesn’t get why he feels so touch-starved without kissing him. Now that Eddie’s out of the hospital, they’re constantly around all of the others - not to mention their own children - and affection has grown difficult.

And so, Eddie makes an excuse to Atticus about using Richie’s shower - since theirs is still like walking into a nightmare after the Bowers incident - just to be alone with Richie again. Both Atti and Henley are in Eddie’s room, huddling around Henley’s laptop to watch some movie she likes. All the others are in their rooms for the night, and Eddie’s buzzing with an energy that only Richie has the power to ignite in him.

And now he’s knocking hesitantly on Richie’s door, towel and pajamas in hand. He barely has a full five seconds to prepare himself before the door is swinging open and Richie’s greeting him with a shit-eating grin, the kind only reserved for Eddie.

“Well, well, Eddie my love, this is a surprise.” He puts all his weight against the doorframe, arms crossing over his broad chest. He’s in a grey tee and sweats, his eyes sleepy. “What brings you by this late?”

“I was hoping to use your shower? If you're not going to be a pain about it.”

“Me? A pain? Never!” He tilts his head and Eddie frowns at him. Richie gives in, tapping and stepping aside. “Sure thing, Eds.”

Richie closes the door behind them and they are finally, happily, alone together. 

“What, the bathroom remind you a little too much of Bowers?” Richie stays where he is, leaning against the closed door, watching Eddie stop awkwardly in the middle of the room.

“Just a bit.” Eddie shifts on his feet, smirking. “And since it’s still sans-curtain, it serves no actual use, so,” Eddie motions to himself by way of finishing his sentence. Richie nods and they both fall quiet.

“Well,” Richie starts, almost leaping off the door, “you, uh, know where it is-”

“Right,” Eddie says too loudly, and they both motion towards the bathroom at the same time.

“-you got everything you need?”

“Yes.” Eddie nods, forcing his eyes away and feeling the heat spread into his cheeks. What the hell is wrong with him?

“Yeah, I bet you have like, special fucking soaps and shampoos.” Richie comes over to stand in front of him, and as he gets closer, Eddie grows warmer. It’s like there’s a rubber band between the two of them, tight with tension, about to snap.

Eddie rolls his eyes affectionately. “It’s regular, actual soap. Not my fault you’re a grown ass man who doesn’t know how to bathe.”

“Hm, you like the way I stink, though.”. Richie stops just a foot away and smiles like he knows why Eddie actually came here; and it wasn’t to fucking shower. He waits for Richie to do something, or point it out, but he just stands there and smirks like the idiot he is.

After a moment, Richie raises his eyebrows. “You gonna take that shower now?”

“Yeah.” Eddie says tightly, gritting his teeth. Richie looks over to the bathroom and then back at Eddie. He almost feels his resolve snap.

He takes another step forward, grabs Richie by the base of his skull and kisses him. And it feels like _home._ He’s never needed the physical part of affection before; never needed the kissing and the swapping of germs that came with it, but with Richie, he wants all of it. Richie all but kisses back like he needs it to breathe, and he puts a hand to Eddie’s shoulder and pulls him in, letting him know just how much he’d wanted this too. Eddie pulls away gently and then dips back in eagerly, focusing on the warm moisture of their joined mouths. It’s been a while since he’d felt like this; he’s not sure if he ever felt like this.

He finally steps back, his hand seeming stuck to Richie’s skin. His own skin has erupted into goosebumps, and he swallows thickly to try and calm his beating heart. Richie shifts on his feet and knocks their foreheads together gently.

“Is that all I’m gonna get?”

Eddie bites back his smile and shoves Richie away. “Never kiss me again, you ungrateful shit.”

Richie laughs and makes a feeble grab after him, just barely catching Eddie by his soft grey hoodie. “Oh, c’mon, Eds.”

“No, you’re being a brat!” Eddie ignores him and heads into the bathroom to set his things down. Richie follows him sullenly, his frame drooping in the doorway.

“You’re seriously only going to kiss me once.” He pouts at Eddie through the mirror indignantly.

“You aren’t helping your case right now, Rich.” 

He hears Richie sigh and come over to stand next to him at the sink. He puts a hand on Eddie’s hip and he side-eyes Richie warningly. He leans in and kisses Eddie’s cheek, and then he does it again, and again, and again, each one in quicker succession and trailing lower and lower.

Eddie laughs on a breathy exhale, his shoulders bunching as he pushes Richie’s face gently away. “You’re such a kid-”

“And you,” Richie tightens his arm around Eddie’s waist, “are one _very_ handsome man, Spaghetti.”

Eddie wrinkles his nose in mock-disgust, and then his resolve ebbs away so fucking quickly it’s ridiculous. Richie barely has time to laugh before Eddie grabs him by the jaw and crashes their mouths together fiercely. Their hips knock against the counter as Richie pushes into him, his arms wrapping tight and strong around Eddie’s waist. Eddie’s hands pull at his neck, jaw, skull, trying to get impossibly closer.

“Eddie,” Richie whispers brokenly, breath hot and damp and fanning over his face.

“Richie,” Eddie whispers back, muffled by a kiss. He’s so caught up in the kissing that he doesn’t notice when Richie pushes him back into the wall and their hips line up. Eddie groans so hard his head hits the wall, but they keep kissing. His heart’s been firing at all cylinders ever since he stepped through the door, and now it’s pinballing away in his body, from his throat down to his groin.

“You drive me fucking crazy,” Richie breathes out when they get their hips to line up again. His eyes are eclipsed to a coffee-ring of brown around the pupil when they flicker up to Eddie’s.

“You are fucking crazy.” Eddie tells him and kisses him furiously, his arms wrapping vice-like around Richie’s neck. He wants him as close as possible, he wants to be smothered by his weight.

Richie laughs an airy sound into Eddie’s mouth. “Only crazy for you.” His hands drag slowly up the landscape of Eddie’s chest. “You got me hooked. I’m all doped up. I’m a druggie, Eds.”

Eddie kisses his chin, his jaw, his nose, smudging his glasses in the process. He wants every part of Richie and then anything else he has left to give. “You’d think you’d never been kissed before.”

Richie makes a sound before going back down on Eddie’s throat. “Don’t patronize me. Or do, I don’t mind. Anyway, it’s different now.”

“How so?” 

Their hips meet again, and Eddie can feel the stiff line of him through his sweats. He’s gonna lose his mind. Richie looks up at him, eyes hot and molten. “Well, it’s you.”

Eddie swallows, his throat feeling thick, like his tongue is too big for his mouth. “Let’s uh-” He stutters, his stomach fluttering. “Bed. Please.”

Richie’s eyes get impossibly wider. 

“ _Now_ , Richie.” Eddie sighs. “Before I change my mind.”

Richie nods helplessly, mumbling practically a million different ways to just say yes as he tugs Eddie off the wall. They all but run straight into the door frame on their way out the bathroom, giggling like children into another kiss. Richie’s still holding Eddie tight around the waist, and he doesn’t let go until his legs hit the bed and he falls back onto it.

Eddie stays standing for a few seconds, the air between them hot and humid. Richie licks his lips, his face flushed. He’s never been taller than Richie before.

“You’re gonna _kill_ me, Eds.” Richie sighs, voice wrecked.

“Yeah.” Eddie breathes and then swallows his pride and sits down on Richie’s thighs.

Richie groans, his hands sliding up Eddie’s back, his hoodie and shirt riding up with his fingers. They kiss heatedly, teeth knocking, hands grasping anywhere they could reach. Eddie’s knees are planted firmly on the bed, bracketing Richie’s thighs. Everytime he shifts, he can feel their hips line up and a new wave of heat rushes through his body. He feels like he’s unraveling, in the best way possible.

Eddie breaks away and leans back to take his hoodie off. Richie’s breathing heavy, his glasses askew on his nose, but he tries to help anyway. As soon as they hear it hit the carpeted floor they’re back on each other like battling animals.

“Fuck.” Richie hisses when Eddie grinds his hips down again. “Fuck, Eddie, holy— oh my _God_.”

Eddie groans in response, a full-body shiver rattling through his bones like an earthquake. 

“Scoot back.” He mumbles, pushing on Richie’s chest gently. “Let me take my shirt off.”

Richie groans like he’s dying. “Holy shit, yes please.”

Eddie snorts as he fumbles off of Richie’s lap, twisting awkwardly to avoid any more contact of their over sensitive crotches. He grips the hem of his shirt but as soon as he lifts his arms, he feels the pain flare in his abdomen.

Eddie hisses through his teeth and Richie practically leaps up. “You alright?”

“Yes, I’m fine-”

“Here, let me help-”

“I’ve got it.” Eddie protests but Richie’s hands are already under his shirt, pulling it up gently as to not put too much stress on the wound. His hands are warm and wide and gentle, skimming delicately over the bandages as he pulls the shirt over Eddie’s head. 

“What the fuck.” Richie says dropping Eddie’s shirt rudely to the floor.

Eddie blinks and steps back, suddenly insecure. “What?”

Richie gapes at him. “You’re _jacked._ ”

Eddie pauses, then scoffs. “I am _not_ jacked, Rich.”

“You’re literally fucking ripped.”

“Oh my God, you’re ridiculous.” Eddie rolls his eyes and steps in again to shut the idiot up with a kiss.

Richie kisses him back eagerly, his hands gripping Eddie by the hips and pulling them flush together. They make out like teenagers, climbing up each other’s bodies like they were made to do nothing else ever.

“We’ll go slow.” Richie tells him and it makes Eddie flush so hard that all he can do is nod. Richie looks down, dragging his long-fingered hands over the bandages that are wrapped tightly around his torso. “Don’t need to explain to Atti how I accidentally ripped his dad’s stitches.”

“Ew, don’t talk about my son right now, what the fuck?”

Richie just laughs as Eddie angrily pushes him back towards the bed. The springs groan as the two of them fall back onto the mattress, and Richie pulls his shirt off over his head in less than a second. Eddie almost loses his mind. He’s all broad chest and big shoulders and dark hair and Eddie feels himself get harder. The hair spreads all the way down his chest and stomach, getting darker and denser in a line under his naval that trails into his tented sweats. He doesn’t stand a chance.

“Stop staring, Eds, you’re making me nervous.” Richie jokes, his chest falling and rising rapidly.

“Literally shut up, how can you be nervous, do you see how hard I am right now?” Eddie motions to himself, still fitted in his tight jeans that are becoming more uncomfortable by the second. Richie’s eyes flit nervously to Eddie’s crotch, and he visibly swallows. It makes the blush spread down his neck to Eddie’s chest.

Richie looks back up at him, his eyes dark. “Are we going to do something about that?”

Eddie licks his lips. “Hell yeah we are.”

He pretty much tackles Richie onto his back, the headboard hitting the wall with the force of it. Richie laughs into another kiss, his mouth wet and warm and open wide for Eddie. His hand smooths down the plane of his back, over his speckled shoulders and the bandages all the way down to his ass. Eddie groans and grinds down onto his thigh, his whole body feeling like it’s being eaten alive by flames. Richie’s hands are all over him, his arms and shoulders and back and neck. Eddie could die like this, his stitches ripping open from their grinding and he’d be happy.

“Hold on-” Richie mutters into a kiss, and then makes a noise of protest. “Wait- stop.”

Eddie breaks away, suddenly panicked. “What- what's wrong?”

Richie shakes his head, his hair mussed from where Eddie had gripped it. “Nothing- you’re fine, you’re perfect. It’s just-...” He swallows and touches Eddie’s cheek gingerly. “Just...could we switch positions?”

Eddie tilts his head down at him. 

“Y’know,” Richie waves a hand in the air, “the last time you were on top of me, you were almost killed-”

“Oh.” Eddie says dumbly, suddenly realizing this must be a little uncomfortable for Richie. 

“I’m not complaining, at all, but I would just feel a little-”

“No, yeah, I mean I get it.” Eddie says as he slips off of Richie’s thighs and onto the bed next to him. “I get it.”

“Sorry,” Richie follows Eddie eagerly, rolling onto his side and keeping a hand on his waist.

“It’s fine, come here.” Eddie grabs him by his shoulders and pulls Richie over him. Richie throws a leg over him and settles against his chest. Eddie grins, feeling absolutely smothered by him in the best way possible. Richie grins back and kisses him sloppily, mouthing along his chin and jawline.

“Sometimes,” Richie starts, breath hot where he’s mouthing along Eddie’s neck, “I feel like I’m dreaming when I’m around you.” He rubs a hand back and forth down Eddie’s thigh distractedly. “Like, I feel like this is too good to be true. Like you-...you actually died, and I’m just living in this grand delusion.”

Eddie runs his fingers down the knobs of Richie’s spine, feels the way his back arches in response. He kisses along the side of his face, and then Richie looks up at him slowly. He licks his lips, eyes a little sad, a frown just barely tugging his lips down.

“I feel like I might wake up any second.”

Eddie puts his hands on the sides of Richie’s face, and rubs his thumbs along the stubble on his jaw. Richie closes his eyes and turns into the feeling, kissing the pad of Eddie’s thumb in a surprisingly sweet gesture.

“You’re not going to wake up.” Eddie whispers. Richie opens his eyes and looks back at him, a smile starting to form. “I’m here with you. You’re stuck with me.” Eddie lifts his hips off the bed to grind against Richie, proving it. “Forever.”

Richie‘s eyes flutter and he laughs, but it’s weak and tremulous. “I’m so happy.” He covers Eddies hand with his own and kisses it again, like he’s apologizing for something. “I’m so happy you’re here and you’re okay and you want me like this. It would’ve _killed_ me to lose you.”

Eddie shushes him, leaning up to kiss his lips gently, more tender than their previous ones. “We don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

Richie smiles against his lips. They don’t have to be afraid anymore.

They kiss again, and again, and soon they’re kissing and breathing harder, in rapid succession. Richie fists one of his hands into the sheets next to Eddie’s head and presses into him, groaning like a starving man. Eddie grabs him by the waist and pulls their hips together again, and moans tear from both of their throats at the sensation.

“You’re a fuckin’ dream, Eddie Kaspbrak.” Richie groans, grinding against Eddie again, their erections dragging together through their clothes. Eddie thinks he might last another two minutes, if he’s lucky.

Eddie arches off the bed to meet Richie’s movements, and he's gonna lose his mind if they don’t do something soon. He removes a hand from Richie’s neck and reaches down between them.

Richie jerks his head up as soon as Eddie touches him through his sweats, and Eddie instantly backtracks.

“Sorry-”

“Oh my God-”

“I should’ve asked, I’m so sorry-”

“Eddie, oh my God,” Richie groans, pushing his glasses back up and blinking dumbly, “please touch me.”

Eddie flushes. “Yeah?”

Richie nods frantically. “Please.”

Eddie nods. “Okay.”

Eddie leans up, puts his head to Richie’s shoulders, and slips his fingers into Richie’s waistband. He’s breathing so hard and so fast because he’s never done this before; he’s only ever done something remotely similar to this with women. He had hated it; it was gross and sticky and damp and he hated every second of it. But _this_. This is so different because it’s Richie. It’s Richie, a man, and not only that but his Richie. It’s his Richie whom he wants so badly it hurts.

His heart pounding, he quickly pushes Richie’s sweats and boxers down over his hips. He thumps his head back down onto the pillow, feeling like he’s just jumped a mile-high hurdle.

“You okay?” Richie asks, his nerves apparent in his voice.

“Yes.” Eddie says quickly, and then he nervously meets Richie’s eyes. “I’ve just never done this before.”

“Oh.” Richie nods quickly, licking his lips. “Uh, it’s easy, really. The same way you- you do it to yourself, just a different angle.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “I figured, dumbass.”

Richie laughs breathily, looking down to where his dick is waiting between them. “You don’t have to if you don’t want.”

Eddie shakes his head. “No. I want.”

“Oh.” Richie says, barely audible. “Okay.”

Eddie opens his eyes and looks at him for a moment, just drinking in the sight of his flushed face and nervous eyes. He’s so gorgeous.

He picks his hand up again and looks at the ceiling as he reaches down between them. He doesn’t want to look just yet. But he does feel it. He feels it when his fingers meet something hot and thick and Richie stutters above him. He feels how hard Richie is, like steel coated in velvet skin. He feels like he’s just struck gold.

Eddie wraps his fingers and the sturdy length and Richie makes a punched-out sound. Eddie moves his hand up, finds the wetness gathering at the tip and spreads it around with his thumb. Richie’s mouth falls open and he groans like an animal in heat. Eddie moves his hand back down, all the way, and squeezes at the base.

“This is going to be over so fucking quickly it’s not even funny.” Richie says in a rush, and Eddie can’t help but laugh. He laughs and finally looks at Richie, finding him grinning deliriously, his skin glowing golden in the lamplight. Eddie leans up and kisses him, open mouthed and sloppy.

“Can you touch me too?” Eddie voices his sudden, new desire against Richie’s lips. Richie groans and nods violently.

“Yes. Yes, yes, yeah, I can do that.” He babbles as he reaches a hand between them and starts to fumble with the button of Eddie’s jeans. Eddie sadly lets go of Richie’s dick to help, and soon he’s lifting his hips and Richie’s shoving his jeans and briefs down all in one go.

“Oh.” Richie says dumbly. “Oh, Eddie.”

“I literally asked you to touch me, that’s all I asked, and you’re not even doing it.”

“I’m basking.”

Eddie thumps his head back against the pillow, sighing heavily. Fine. So he reaches down again and grips Richie’s dick and jerks him gently. Richie’s hips buck and he curses under his breath.

“Evil.”

“Just trying to move things along.”

Richie huffs a laugh and finally, finally lifts a hand and touches Eddie. 

His spine arches right off the bed, and a moan is punched from his chest. “Richie.”

Richie shudders and leans closer. Eddie picks up the pace with his hand, watches the way Richie’s brow creases and he bites his lip. Eddie throws an arm over his back and pulls him down against him so that their knuckles brush between them.

“Oh, fuck.” Richie says into the sweat of Eddie’s throat. His hand speeds up too, his palm already wet with sweat and precome. “Eddie, holy shit.”

Eddie swears breathily, his toes curling so hard his feet cramp. “Richie, Richie don’t stop.”

“You mean _everything_ to me.” He breathes, his hips canting into Eddie’s hand, his chest heaving. “You’re my everything, Jesus, Eddie,” He whines.

Well, if they’re being honest.

“I’ve never wanted anyone but you.” Eddie says to the ceiling, Richie’s face buried in his neck. “Rich, everytime I did this to myself I was thinking of you. Even when I didn’t remember you.”

“Fuck,” Richie growls, his hand jerking faster and tighter, “I’m close, Eddie.”

“Me too.” Eddie sighs, hips fucking upwards into the tight heat of Richie’s fist. He digs his nails into the meat of Richie’s back and bites at his throat. 

“You’re so fucking hot, Eds.” Richie grunts, his feet planted firmly in the mattress. The springs squeal beneath them. “You make me go fucking _crazy_.”

“I wanna do this every time I see you. Gotta refrain from jumping you all the goddamn time.” Eddie grits into his damp, warm skin. His hand trails up to Richie’s face and he moans, his breaths coming shorter. They’re both so fucking close. The air in the room is so heavy with their breathing it’s almost palpable.

Richie kisses along Eddie’s throat and jerks him roughly. “Eddie, I love you.”

And that’s it. Eddie comes harder than he ever has in his life, grunting Richie’s name like a mantra and holding his face with a sweaty palm. It only takes a few more strokes for Richie to follow him over the edge, muffling his shout of Eddie’s name into the mattress.

Richie collapses into Eddie’s chest, both their stomachs wet and sticky with come. They’re both breathing hard, still coming down from their high. Eddie’s hand comes up to card through Richie’s curls, damp with sweat.

“ _Yowza_ , Eds.”

Eddie snorts into his hair and kisses the top of his head. Lazily, Richie looks up at him. His face is red and his glasses are fogged up, and there’s a thin sheen of sweat on his face. He’s practically glowing.

“Hi.” Eddie says stupidly.

“Hi.” Richie breathes and leans in for a kiss. It’s sweet and gentle, a nice contrast to their violent making out from a few minutes ago. Eddie presses their foreheads together and they lay there for a few precious moments, breathing in each other’s air.

Eddie snaps his eyes open after a realization. The gooey feeling in his chest isn’t in his chest it’s on his chest.

“Oh my God.” He says. The sweat and come drying on his bandages is becoming less hot by the second and a whole lot more gross.

“Hm.” Richie responds, eyes still closed.

“I’m going to get come in my stitches.”

“Oh fuck.” Richie says and instantly sits up. “Oh shit. My bad.”

Eddie pushes him off quickly and swings his legs over the side of the bed. Atti is going to start wondering why he’s taking so long. “I need to shower.”

“Yeah, uh- hold on,” Richie stuffs himself back into his sweats and follows Eddie into the bathroom. Eddie swears once he sees himself in the mirror. He’s sweaty and red and his hair is sticking up and most pressing, there’s come all over his chest.

“Fuck.” Eddie grabs one of the rags off the counter and wipes himself down as Richie starts the shower.

“Sorry about that.” Richie laughs nervously as he comes over to help Eddie with the bandages. Eddie laughs too, because he finds it rather funny that he’s apologizing for literally jizzing all over him.

Richie unclamps the metal clip holding the bandages together and Eddie starts to unravel them gingerly. “Not all your fault. I came too.”

Richie snorts. “Yeah, you did.”

Without the bandages, Eddie feels startlingly naked in front of Richie. He knows it’s ridiculous, neither of them have any business being nervous around each other now, but he’s shy anyway. Richie rubs his fingers delicately around the healing pink skin, giving the black stitches a wide berth like he’s nervous to touch them. 

He meets Eddie’s eyes in the mirror. “It’s not as bad as I thought.” His voice is quiet under the hum of the shower.

Eddie hums and brushes his hands over Richie’s knuckles. Richie smiles softly and kisses the sunny junction of Eddie’s neck and shoulder. It almost makes Eddie forget the threat of infection completely.

Eventually, he pulls away from the warmth of Richie behind him. “I should shower.”

“Right.” Richie says, tossing the bandages and pocketing his hands. He glances shyly back at Eddie, barely meeting his eyes.

Eddie clears his throat and steps towards him. “Hey.”

Richie looks up, hopeful.

“Get in with me.”

Richie blinks and then grins, going pink and suddenly becoming bashful. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Eddie wrinkles his nose. “You smell like sex. And besides,” Eddie looks towards the shower and ducks his head, “I love you.”

Eddie goes to step into the shower, but then Richie grabs him and pulls him against his chest, peppering his face in kisses.

“Rich!” Eddie laughs into a kiss. Richie wraps his arms gingerly around his body and kisses him, once, twice, three times-

“Eddie.” Richie muses and continues the onslaught of kisses that’s making Eddie laugh and grin like a kid. 

They stay like that, giggling into kisses and saying each other’s names until the steam makes their skin go soft and they step into the shower together.

He has to come out, Richie decides.

He decides it while he’s watching Henley and Atti try and fail to correctly play pool in the diner. Atti keeps trying to play it right and then gets frustrated when Henley tries to teach herself how to juggle with the cue ball. Eddie’s next to him, his shoulder against Richie’s as he talks about something with Bev. Bill and Mike are laughing over burgers and Ben is trying to deal with how Bev is leaning against his shoulder. It hasn’t been this peaceful in so long.

He _has_ to come out, because he wants it to stay like this. He wants to be a part of this. But being a part of this also brings up the question about being with Eddie and what that would mean. He wants to be a part of the happily ever after, with his family and with Eddie. Happily ever after has never sounded this good.

And then there’s the thing with his kid and their life back in California. Not to mention Eddie’s kid and his ex-wife and New York. All of that feels like so much and coming out to the Losers seems like such a small step it doesn’t even scare him anymore. Eddie’s making him braver by the minute.

Eddie grips his knee under the table, and Richie looks over at him. Their eyes meet for a second and then Eddie turns back to Bev. He’d never say it out loud, but Richie suddenly understands the truth in the _‘my heart burns there too’_ bullshit.

He clears his throat, his leg bouncing beneath the table. “So.”

They look up at him.

“I’m gay.”

Eddie stares back at him, smiling and making Richie’s heart swell in the way only Eddie knows how to do. But the rest of them go deadly silent, the kind of silence that would only happen when something bad is about to happen. Richie takes a sip of his coffee to hide how nervous he is.

But then, all at once, Ben, Bev, and Mike grin.

“Alright.” Mike says, nodding.

Bev beams and reaches over Eddie to shake his shoulder affectionately. Ben grins, bites his lip and glances at Bill, who’s stone-cold silent. Even though he’s caught up in his thought of _‘why does Bill look so mad’_ Richie doesn’t miss the look shared across the table between the two of them.

“What?” He asks, suddenly afraid again. 

Bill shakes his head and with a sigh, gets his wallet out of the pocket of his jeans. Richie watches in disbelief as Bill takes out thirty dollars and glumly hands it to a still-grinning Ben.

“What the fuck!”

Bev explodes into laughter as the family across from their booth shoots Richie a look. But he doesn’t care. Because according to Bill’s frown and Ben’s pocketing of his cash, his friends made a fucking bet.

“Did you two fucking _bet_ on my sexuality?” 

Mike apparently can’t take it anymore, because now he’s cackling into his hands, at least trying to be quiet in account of the others in the diner.

Ben shrugs. “It was Bev’s idea.”

Richie gawks at her, and she slaps Ben’s chest. “Bill was the one who wanted to put money on it.”

“Bill, what the _fuck_!”

“No, tha-that’s not _fucking_ true.” Bill jabs a finger at Ben and it makes them all laugh harder. “You were the one that suh-said you were wi-willing to bet money.”

“To be fair, I tried to stop them.” Mike puts his hands up and Bill narrows his eyes in response.

“I thought you were better than this, Michael.” Richie says seriously, shaking his head.

“Were you all a part of this?” Eddie asks, laughing quietly. His knee is bouncing now, practically a jackhammer under the table. Richie reaches under and grabs it, feeling Eddie still against him. They don’t need to be afraid anymore.

“Stan was on my side.” Ben shrugs.

“Fuck you, you did _not_ get Stan in on this-”

Bill interjects quickly, propping his arms on the table. “If anything, it was Stan’s idea-” 

“Wow. I really had this whole speech prepared for my big coming out moment, and y’all really went and-”

Bev raises her fist in the air, “Speech, speech, speech!” 

“No, fuck you guys, now you don’t get my fucking speech.”

“Why don’t we get to hear the speech?” Bill makes a gesture with his hands.

“Because, Billiam, you bet _thirty fucking dollars_ that I was straight!”

Eddie laughs loudly, his head knocking against Richie’s shoulder. Bev raises her hands to her mouth to try and stifle her giggles.

“Because you’re a dumbass, Bill.” Bev tells him, patting his hand solemnly. Bill rolls his eyes, but he’s grinning.

“Y’know what Bill, maybe I’ll marry Mike, see how straight you think I am then.”

Mike scrunches his nose at Richie like he doesn’t want to get involved in their bullshit. Bill throws his hands up.

“Fine, maybe I’ll marry Eddie, then!”

Before Richie can respond, Eddie snorts and shakes his head, “Pass.” 

Richie explodes into laughter as Bill just slumps backwards into the booth, looking defeated but laughing under his breath. They’re all laughing their heads off at shit that’s barely funny, and the other patrons are starting to look at them like they’re insane. Even Henley and Atti have noticed, but Richie honestly couldn’t bring himself to care if he wanted to.

Because he just came out after thirty years in the closet and the world didn’t come crashing down around him like he’d feared it would.

**Los Angeles, 2011**

Children do this all the time, they tell him. 

Children fight all the time. They’re simply little bundles of energy and emotions and they take it out on each other. All the time. They cry and scream and scrape their knees all the time. There’s nothing to be worried about, they tell him when he runs into the office. They see this all the time. These sorts of things happen _all the time._

Children get their little noses bloodied and their glasses broken all the time.

And besides, she had a part in it as well. Everyone knows that when little girls get pushed around on the playground, they’re supposed to stay down. They’re not supposed to fight back. They're supposed to stay calm and stay level-headed like good little girls do.

But of course, Henley Tozier wasn’t raised to stay down, so when Carter Remington in the fifth grade pushed her down onto the blackened asphalt during recess, she got up and pushed him right back.

“He didn’t do anything.” Carter’s father - some corporate businessman, too bothered ruining someone’s life to be here for his brat kid - had sneered. “He’s not violent. We know our own son.”

The mother had turned her nose up and glared at Henley, the way clean-cut women always glare at dirty, scraped-up girls. “It was your daughter who started this mess. Carter told us himself.”

And Richie had responded with something maybe a little too angry and too vulgar for an elementary school office, because the father got angry.

“Do you want to take this outside, jackass?” The father had hissed, looking ready to punch his lights out right there. He was tall and lean, Richie could see the line of his biceps and his flat chest through his ironed business suit. He smelled like cologne and shaving cream. The mother tilted her chin up and narrowed her eyes at Richie to see what he would say. They both knew he couldn’t do anything; he was an alcoholic comedian in his late thirties with a dad bod. 

These people and their son were free-range, grass fed thoroughbreds, and Richie and Henley were dirty, sweating draft horses.

So instead he makes Henley listen to whatever bullshit the school resource officer has to say and she apologizes to little snot-nosed Carter. Then he takes her to the nurse’s office to get an ice pack for her bruised nose. He stands by the door and watches as the nurse packs the bag of ice in a paper towel and gives it to his daughter.

“You know,” She begins, smiling like she’s sharing a secret, as Henley presses the pack to her face, “When a boy picks on you, it usually means he likes you.”

He knows it’s meant to cheer Henley up, but it instead makes Richie go livid.

It makes him go livid because there is a small part of him that still remembers the girl he knew that was bruised over and over by her own father. He still remembers that girl that never knew real, unconditional love until she met her own friends. He still remembers the girl that was beaten repeatedly and was taught that it was love.

“Don’t tell her that.” He says, stepping off the wall and unfolding his arms. The nurse looks up at him curiously. “How could you say that to her?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I just-”

“He broke her glasses and made her nose bleed. He doesn’t like her.”

The nurse snaps her mouth shut and swallows.

“Hens, c’mon, we’re going home.” He sends the nurse a withering glare instead of chewing her out even more because something tells him that’s not what Henley needs to see right now. He grabs her backpack and takes her hand and pulls her out of the room without looking back.

“Are you mad at me?” She asks once they’re in the parking lot. He’s pulling her along so fast she’s stumbling, but he’s still vibrating with rage that he can’t bring himself to slow down. 

“No, Henley, I’m not mad.”

“You seem mad.” She huffs.

He stops once they reach the car and lets go of her. “I’m not mad at you, I’m mad at them.” He jabs a finger at the school in his fury.

She looks up at him through the cracked lenses of her glasses, and her eyes are wet. Her breaths come faster and more shaky.

“I wasn’t lying, Dad. He pushed me first, I swear.”

He sighs and drops to his knees in front of her. Shushing her, he brushes the hair from her face with gentle hands. “Hey, I believe you, okay? I believe you, Henley.”

Henley nods and swallows thickly. He touches the bruise under her eye with a thumb and he sighs. 

“Keep the ice on that, okay?”

She nods and presses the pack to her eye again. “I’m sorry I hit him, Dad.”

“Don’t be sorry, Hens. He hit you first. He deserved it.”

“But he told me to stay down.” She sniffs and rubs at her unbruised eye. “I should’ve just stayed down.”

“ _No._ ” He says quickly, and then looks down. After a moment, he looks back up at her, suddenly serious. 

“Henley, I need you to listen to me. I need you to _really_ listen.”

She nods and looks at him in earnest.

“You did the right thing today. You always get up. No matter what they tell you to do, you _always_ get back up.” He shakes her by the shoulders to get the point across. “You don’t _ever_ stay down, do you understand that? You understand me?” 

She nods, sniffing and wiping the tears from her face. He tucks her hair behind her ears and pulls her into his arms. He kisses her hair and holds her close and prays that she gets it, prays that the next time she falls she’ll get back up. He wants her to do nothing but get back up.

And for the rest of her life, whenever Henley Tozier gets knocked down, she thinks of her father and those words and she gets right back up.

Coming out to his friends, the people he’s walked through hell and back with, is one thing. Coming out to his daughter is something completely different.

He exits the bathroom after a shower, his pajamas soft on steam-soaked skin, and finds her on the bed, laptop out and headphones in. Her glasses are glowing with the reflection of the screen and she’s wearing an old tee of his. He hangs the towel up as he contemplates how to go about this. 

He knows he _has_ to tell her, and he knows she won’t react with anything other than support, but it’s still nerve racking. It’s still going to be a big life change for the both of them, and change is something she doesn’t take very kindly too. There isn’t a textbook page on how forty year old closeted gay men should come out to their preteen daughters, and even if there was, he’s not sure it would be very helpful. They aren’t really textbook kind of people.

He puts his glasses back on and they almost fog up against his heated skin. He turns to face her and sucks in a breath.

“Hey.”

She doesn’t even flinch, too absorbed in whatever movie or show she’s watching. He sighs and reaches over to yank an earbud out.

“Dude!” She wails, swatting his hand away.

“I gotta talk to you, earbuds out.” He sits down next to her and pushes the laptop away. When she makes no move to shut the movie off, he snaps his fingers. “Now, Hens. Team Tozier huddle, let’s go.”

“Ugh, _fine_.” She groans and takes her earbuds out and closes the laptop. “What?”

“I need to tell you something important.”

She squints at him. “Okay?”

“And before I tell you, I want you to know it’s okay to have questions and to be confused.”

She leans away from him and eyes him suspiciously. “Are you dying?”

Richie sputters, “What? No-”

“Are you getting married?”

“No, Henley-”

“Okay.” She shrugs, smiling. “Then we’re fine. What is it?”

He looks at her and exhales heavily, his shoulders falling. He wishes this was as easy as it was to tell his friends. “So, you know how,” he clears his throat, “sometimes, people get pressured into doing things they don’t really want to do?”

She nods slowly, cautiously.

“And sometimes, people have to do certain things to try and, y’know, fit in?”

“Like peer pressure?” She raises an eyebrow. “Are you trying to give me the weed lecture? ‘Cause I know about that stuff already, I don’t need any magic grass to make-”

“That’s not what I meant.” He shakes his head quickly. “I mean, I’m glad you- I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Oh.” She blinks.

“My point was that, sometimes, people lie to themselves and to others to try and fit into society. Sometimes they lie for a really long time.”

Henley squints as she thinks. “Like divorced people?”

Richie puts his head in his hands, “Henley, what the-”

“I don’t know, man! I don’t know what you’re trying to say here!” She throws her hands up in the air and he rubs his face tiredly.

“Henley.” He rubs his face and sighs, keeping his eyes closed. Finally, he looks up at her. “Honey, I’m gay.”

Henley blinks.

“Oh.” Then, a nod. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” He smiles and nods sullenly. 

She bites her lip, seeming to mull over this sudden pipe-bomb of news, and thinks. Then, she nods. “Huh. Okay.”

“That alright?”

“Yeah.” She says cheerily, hands on her knees. “Yeah, Dad. I don’t mind. For real.”

He breathes out a breath that feels like it’s been bottled inside him for years. “Well, good. Are you...surprised?”

Henley hums, squinting seriously. “Nope.”

He blinks. “You knew?”

She shakes her head, lips pursed. “No.”

“Huh.”

She stays silent for a few more seconds, picking at the blanket beneath her. Eventually, she looks up. “Do you...want me to be surprised?”

He considers it for a moment, looking at her through squinted eyes. “I’m not really sure.”

The air conditioner in the window hums laboriously as they sit there. The crickets and cicadas buzz and chirp outside, unaware of the change that’s occurring inside their room.

“Well, I love you.” Henley says finally, looking up at him with big eyes. “No matter what.”

He smiles and leans over to kiss the top of her head. He holds her there and puts his chin on top of her head. “Thank you. I love you too, Hens.”

She scoots over to put her head on his shoulder, and he wraps an arm around her in response. They sit there until the clock strikes eleven at night and Henley speaks.

“I guess it’s about time I tell you something too.”

He looks down at her curiously. She shifts away to look up at him, sighing heavily.

“I’m gay too.”

He is surprised, but he smiles. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” She laughs and scratches at her neck, “guess it runs in the family or something.”

He laughs and she laughs with him. Then, he leans back against the headboard. “When did you know?”

She crosses her legs and shrugs nonchalantly. “When I was, like, nine. I was watching _Scream_ and thought Rose McGowan was hot.”

He looks at her. “Okay the fact that I didn’t just hear you say Neve Campbell is an honest-to-God travesty.”

She snorts and laughs, looking exactly the way he himself feels, relieved and happy. He feels the change coming on to them both, but for once, he isn’t afraid of it. He doesn’t have to be afraid anymore.

“Thanks for telling me. I’m proud of you, and I love you.” He takes her hand and squeezes it as he tells her all the things his parents never told him. She’s not gonna be taught to hide who she is; not if Richie has anything to do with it.

“No matter what.” Henley says firmly.

“No matter what.” He repeats. “Team Tozier for the win.”

“For the win.” Her completely stoic demeanor makes him laugh and hug her again. Henley wraps her arms around his back and hugs him tight, going quiet and putting her face in his shoulder.

“I’m actually glad you’re gay, believe it or not.”

“Why?” She mumbles, then pulls back to look up at him.

“I was afraid you liked Atti.”

Henley wheezes and laughs like it’s the funniest joke he’s ever told. “Jeez, Dad. Atti? For real?”

“He’s a nice kid!”

“He’s a nice friend. Like, friend with a capital F.” She rolls her eyes like this should be the most obvious thing in the world, and Richie thinks it’s ridiculous. Atti is Eddie’s kid, and Henley is his; of course Richie was afraid she was crushing on him. Crushing on Kaspbraks practically runs in Richie’s veins by now.

“Why does it even matter if I had a crush on him?” She asks, snapping him back to the present.

He hisses, knowing he’d probably have to tell her this eventually. “Because I have a crush on Eddie.”

Her eyebrows go up. “Oh.” Then she beams. “Oh.”

Richie flips through the book on the nightstand distractedly. “Yeah.”

“Oh!” Henley gets louder, and socks him in the arm. “Now I get it!”

Richie rolls his eyes, blushing. “Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

“Oh my God, _Dad_!” She grabs his shoulder and shakes him, now up on her knees. “That makes so much sense! You were here because he was hurt!” She stops shaking him and makes a face. “Aww, Dad!”

“Oh my God, Henley, chill.”

“Dad, that’s so sweet, do you love him? Does he love you back? Wait, wait, does Atti know? What does Eddie think of me? Does he like me? I hope he likes me. I’m pretty sure stepdads are supposed to like their stepkids, but I guess-”

“Henley, Jesus, slow down. What the hell are you talking about?” He grabs her by the shoulders to still her unceasing vibrating.

She tilts her head at him, suddenly seeming nervous. “Well, aren’t you going to marry him? I mean, like, eventually?”

Richie feels the heat rush to his face, and now he’s nervous. “Well- I mean...I don’t know? Hopefully?”

She grins. “You’re blushing, Dad.”

He rolls his eyes, but he’s grinning too. “Whatever, that doesn’t even matter right now-”

“Doesn’t matter? Dad, I’m getting a brother! I’m gonna have a stepbrother and a stepdad!”

“Henley, please be quiet.” Richie finds himself glancing at the door even though the others are practically all the way down the hall. “No one’s getting married. You’re not getting a stepbrother.”

She frowns.

“Eddie and I only just remembered our feelings for each other. This is kind of complicated for both of us.”

“Okay?”

“You can’t go nuts with this info, okay? I’m handling it.”  
“I’m handling it.” She mocks him and he swats her. 

“So can you please keep this between us?” He looks at her seriously, and she sighs dramatically. “Henley. Please?”

Her jaw works as she thinks, and then she sits up straighter. “Fine.”

He sighs in relief and hugs her. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, whatever.” The words sound squished out of her by his arms. “I get it, I’m the best daughter ever.”

“Well, _duh_.” He lets go of her and kisses the top of her head, smiling. “Team Tozier?”

She smiles back at him. “Team Tozier.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the uris twins are ari and annie :)
> 
> leave comments for team tozier bitch


	5. dear winter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _dear winter,_   
>  _i hope you like your name_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **TRIGGER WARNING**  
>  there are mentions of some very mild transphobia in this chapter!! this chapter deals more with atticus coming out and how his parents reacted!
> 
> so SO sorry for missing a week. my personal life absolutely exploded with work and drama!! i got pulled away from this project for about a week, and instead of rushing to upload the chapter on time, i skipped a week in order to give you guys an actual prepared chapter (especially considering this ones contents)

For being so fucking loud, Henley sure does know how to hide from him. Atti’s walking up and down the aisles of the drugstore trying to find her, to no avail. She’d disappeared almost as soon as they walked in and his dad - who barely needs that damned cane anymore - went to get his prescription at the back counter. 

Now he’s alone in a store that’s just like the ones his mother would drag him through back home. His skin feels itchy just being in here, and he finds his hand going to his back pocket to make sure the inhaler is still there. He hasn’t used it in a few days. Breathing has been easier than-

Henley jumps out and grabs him by the shoulders, making him yelp. She chortles and he smacks her arm.

“Atti, it’s so easy it’s not even fun.”

“Can you not be a child for ten seconds?”

She rolls her eyes and begins to toy with the boxes of bandage and gauze on the shelf. “Can you not have a stick up your ass for ten seconds?”

He ignores her and pulls out his inhaler. He knows she just scared him to get a rise out of him, but his heart is having a hard time slowing down. He takes a deep breath out of it, closing his eyes and she looks over at him.

“What’s that shit about?”

He pockets it as he responds, “What, my inhaler? It’s called asthma, dumbass.”

They walk further down the aisle. “Yeah, but isn’t that only for when you’re, like, working out?”

Atti shrugs. “Sometimes, I guess. I just need it when I get nervous.”

Henley looks shocked. “Did I really scare you that badly?”

“No, it wasn’t that. It’s just,” Atti waves a hand in the air, “pharmacies make me nervous. I know it’s stupid, but-”

“No, I get it, lots of things make me nervous.” Henley says, picking up a ballcap from some rack and trying it on. 

“Like what?”

She shrugs, “Doctors. The dark.” She puts the hat back and picks up a box of bandaids. “Moths. Envelopes.”

He stares at her, grinning slowly as she continues.

“Mollusks. Slugs - specifically stepping on them. Fruit at the bottom of yogurt cups. Bananas. Getting a papercut. Did I already say moths? Fuck moths.”

He laughs as she puts the box back on the shelf and continues down the aisle. “Maybe you need an inhaler more than I do.”

“I think I need _something_ , that’s for sure. Think your dad’ll buy me some Xanax?” She smirks and they both laugh. After a silent moment, she asks, “Why are you afraid of drugstores?”

Questions also make him nervous, so he deflects it. “Why are you afraid of all that?”

She shrugs. “I’m a weird person. And _you’re_ deflecting.”

He hates that she can read him so well, when there’s still so much of her he doesn’t know about. He shrugs, and rubs his forearm. “Pharmacies remind me of my mom.”

She whistles. “Wow, when are we going to unpack _that_ trauma.”

He scoffs, going red. “It’s not trauma. And also, it’s not like I’m the only one with mommy issues.”

He thinks for a second he may have said the wrong thing, but apparently, she can take as good as she gives. She looks back at him and smiles.

“Touché. Let’s unpack our mommy issues over tonight’s movie.” She picks up a roll of gauze and spins it around on her finger

“What are we watching?”

“We should watch _Whiplash_. Or _Gone Girl_. Something long and interesting enough to distract us from our dads boning each other in the next room. Oh! But _Interstellar_ is really-”

Atticus laughs suddenly and loudly, “Literally what?”

Now, she doesn’t know if her father knew it when he told her, but Henley couldn’t keep a secret if her life depended on it. She may have gotten her deadly comedy skills and her wonderful charm from her father, but apparently she did not get his sick ability to keep secrets because it has been less than a day since her father told her to specifically not tell anyone and she’s already gone and fucked it up.

She snorts, “Uh, yeah, what do you think they were doing last time your dad went to _‘shower’_? He was over there for like an hour.” 

His grin fades when he realizes she might be serious. “Are you serious?”

She looks over at him, grinning cheekily, but then the grin fades. He grows more concerned by the second. 

“Tell me you’re joking.”

She drops the roll of gauze and her hands go to her mouth. 

“Oh my God. I thought he told you.”

His mouth drops open. “You’re being serious?”

She starts to tremble and she pales considerably. “Oh my God. Atti, I totally thought you knew, oh my God.”

“Richie _fucked_ my dad?” He almost yells because what the fuck. She can’t just drop that on him.

She shushes him, waving her hands and looking around as people turn to stare. “Atti, shut up, shut _up_ , oh my God-”

“What do you mean ‘shut up’ you just told me Richie fucked my father!”

“Shhh! Shut up, Atti, shut up! I thought he told you I swear!”

“Why would he tell me that, he keeps _everything_ from me!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please just don’t freak out-”

“How can I _not_ freak out!”

“You can’t! Atti please, it’s not even a big-”

“Kids!” Eddie calls out to them from down the aisle and they both turn. Henley turns back to Atti as he begins to approach them. 

“You can’t say anything.” She whispers frantically

“What?”

“You can’t say anything-”

“Are you crazy?”

“-Atti, please.” She presses her hands together and then turns her back to him as Eddie stops next to them.

“Everything alright?”

“Yeah,” Henley says quickly and glances back at him, her eyes pleading, “everything’s fine. We’re just chilling. Y’know, being kids.”

Atti closes his eyes. God she’s bad at this.

“Nothing.” He interrupts, sending her a glare when she looks back at him in shock. “We’re fine. Are you done?”

“Yeah.” His dad says, still obviously unconvinced, and looks between the two of them. Henley’s practically sweating, and she’s got her mouth clamped shut. The two of them stay silent until they follow Eddie out of the store; then Atti turns to her.

“Once we’re back at the Inn, you tell me _everything._ ”

Once Henley explains the little information she knows, it makes a little more sense.

Atti wasn’t surprised about the gay part; _that_ he suspected early on after the divorce. The divorce was instigated by Atti’s inevitable coming out - and his mother’s disastrous, gutting reaction - but there were traits of his father that he noticed that may have also played a part.

His father doesn’t like to be coddled, he never had. It had been the cause of many arguments during his marriage to Atti’s mother, and Eddie seemed emboldened by the divorce. He was suddenly thriving on his own, in his own condo in the city, like he never needed Myra or their son at all. And suddenly, Atti was alone in the house with his mother half of the time. It was strange to see; his father a changed man, a man he would visit every other week like the custody arrangement said, a man Atti barely recognized. 

“A lot of dudes do it,” Henley tells him over an ice cream sandwich while they sit on the steps of the Inn, “A lot of gay dudes marry girls and then divorce them. I bet if my dad had married whoever gave birth to me, he would have divorced her eventually too.”

“I think I knew, kind of.” Atti says, letting his ice cream drip to the cement steps. He thinks of how his father would sleep in the guest room most nights. “Dad and Mom were never really...typical.”

She snorts, “You’re not very _typical_ either.”

He shoots her a look that she ignores but continues, “I mean, they weren’t very affectionate. They slept in separate beds. Had separate bank accounts.”

“So you weren’t surprised? When they split?”

He shakes his head and watches a stray cat slip into the bushes across the street. “I saw it coming. I came out only a few days before they told me.”

“Do you think it was your fault?” Henley asks outright instead of letting the question hang unsaid between them. She never does things half-assed, he’s realized in these few days he’s known her.

He mulls over his answer while he takes another bite of his ice cream. “I think so,” He says finally, through a mouthful of chocolate.

She hums and they sit in silence for a while. Atti’s never liked the silence, but with her, it’s comfortable. Less stifling than it ever was before.

“Well, it sounds like it would’ve happened eventually.” She looks at him finally, suddenly genuine. He nods gratefully.

“Yeah. I know. But Mother took it really hard. I think… it was kind of a breaking point for her.” He mutters, thinking specifically of his mother and her confusion, her disdain, the things she said to him.

_‘What happened to the little girl I raised?’_

“No offense, but your mom sounds like a raging bitch.” Henley says so matter-of-factly it makes him laugh.

Feeling guilty for laughing, he shakes his head and quiets himself, “She’s not. She loves me, she just…”

“Is a bitch?” Henley finishes when he takes too long to continue.

“Doesn’t _understand_.” He says, looking at her pointedly. “She doesn’t understand how I feel, and that makes it hard for her to sympathize with me.”

“So?” Henley grunts, wiping her cream covered hands on her shorts. “Dad doesn’t understand half the shit I do.”

“It’s different, Henley.” He rolls his eyes, “You're not trans. Parents have a hard time dealing with that.”

“I guess,” she mumbles, “but even if she doesn’t understand it, aren’t parents supposed to love you no matter what?”

“She _does_ love me.” He insists but something in his gut twinges.

“Right, but you said she had a hard time dealing with it, aren’t moms supposed to-”

“Henley, you don’t even have a mom, why are you telling me about mine?”

She blinks and goes suddenly, horrifically silent. Atti suddenly realized he’s gone much too far. He jumped way over the ‘brutal honesty’ line. He practically took a fucking running leap.

He raises a hand to his mouth, “I’m sorry.”

She shakes her head and looks away. “It’s fine.”

“Really, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have-”

“No, you’re right.” She nods and finally looks back at him, “I don’t have one. So I shouldn’t be telling you how to deal with yours. It’s none of my business, anyway.”

Her voice is clipped and less expressive and she keeps nodding like she’s reassuring herself more than him. The tips of his ears and his cheeks are scorching hot with guilt.

“I’m sorry.”

Henley smiles, “It’s fine, dude. Literally don’t worry about it.” She punches his arm, chuckling. “I’m glad you have a little fight in you.”

But for the rest of the night, she is quiet.

**New York, 2010**

Summer nights with his son are what remind Eddie he wanted this. 

They’re sitting on the back porch, and Eddie’s watching Atticus chase fireflies through the warm grass. The air is damp with summer heat and the amount of bug spray Myra hosed them down with before she let them go outside. Eddie’s indulging in a very rare glass of wine, starting to finally relax from a long week of working. 

He barely can ever relax, except for when he’s sleeping. But being outside, in the purple evening air, helps a lot. Feeling the air on his skin, breathing in the damp summer musk and breathing it back out again.

Atticus sighs loudly from where he's crouched in the tall grasses near the edge of the yard. Eddie looks up and frowns.

“Hey, come back here. There’s poison ivy over there.”

Atti stands and looks back at him. “I can’t catch any fire bugs!”

“Fire _flies_.” Eddie corrects and shakes his head in amusement as he motions his son over. “Come here. I’ll show you how.”

He sets the wine glass down on the old stained wood and descends the steps as Atti runs over to him. Fireflies float around the backyard, lighting up the stagnant night air as cicadas hum lazily in the trees.

“Here,” Eddie says as he watches one float by, the light of its body bobbing in the slight breeze. He reaches upwards and cups his hands quickly but gently around it, feeling the little bug land in his palm.

“You have to be quick. But be gentle, because you don’t want to hurt them.”

Atti nods frantically and steps closer, his fingers prying Eddie’s cupped hands apart to see the bug. The firefly crawls lazily across Eddie’s palm, its antenna wriggling to find out where the hell it is. 

“Can I hold it?” Atti asks urgently, cupping his hands the same way Eddie is.

Eddie laughs, holding his hand out so the bug can exchange hands, “Be careful. He’s small and fragile.”

Atti handles the bug with expert care, his eyes wide and full of wonder. Eddie smiles his heart swelling to an extreme he didn’t know it was capable of. This is what reminded him of how much he wanted this.

“I like fire bugs.” Atti whispers, staring at the tiny creature in his hands like he’s never seen anything so fascinating. Eddie wonders what it must be like to be so easily overjoyed like his son.

“Fireflies, honey.” He says again, but doesn’t really mean it. He combs his fingers through Atti’s soft hair, and watches the sun dip low into the sky. 

Atti jumps when the firefly spreads its wings, and watches in awe as it takes off and flies away. “Where is it going?”

“He’s flying back home.” 

Atti frowns. “I wanted to keep it.”

“You couldn’t keep it, honey.” Eddie tuts, “It has to go home to its family.”

“Can we catch another one?” Atti asks, sounding dejected.

“Sure. But you know we can’t keep them right?”

Atti nods. So they go about the yard, catching fireflies in their hands and showing them to one another. And then, when the bugs decide to fly home, Atti respectfully reaches his hands towards the stars and watches them go. Eddie watches it all, wondering how he got so lucky with such a lovely kid.

When the sun settles into the horizon and the crickets start to chirp, Eddie scoops Atti up into his arms and rests him against his hip. The fireflies light up the sky and the trees and the grasses, and Atti yawns. He puts his head on Eddie’s shoulder, and Eddie holds his kid closer. There’s a part of him that knows that one day, Atti will have to learn to say goodbye to more than just fireflies. He knows that one day, Atti will be a little more wary of poison ivy and bug bites. One day, Atti will grow scared, and there’s nothing Eddie can do about it.

But for now, Atti falls asleep in his father's arms and Eddie just basks in the glow of the fireflies.

**Queens, November 2014**

It is raining, and the city streets are slick and shimmery with rain.

Atti presses his forehead to the window, watches the raindrops pour down the glass to pool at the bottom. Through the rear view mirror, he can see the tires cutting through the water in the street, and he watches it slosh upwards onto the sidewalk. Thunder cracks across the sky in the distance, rumbling over the skyscrapers. 

The air outside is heavy with the approach of an autumn storm, but the air inside the car is heavier because of the custody papers just finalized today. Not even the tension of thunder in the air is greater than the tension between a man and his son confined to a small car post-custody battle. 

Atti’s father clears his throat, and remarks with a dry laugh, “When it rains, right?”

Atti doesn’t laugh. His breath fogs up the cold window when he sighs. _‘It’s pouring,’_ He thinks.

Eddie bites the inside of his cheek, his eyes darting from the road to his son, silent in the passenger seat. “Atticus. Hey.”

Slowly, Atti turns his head and meets his eyes. Eddie looks back at him in earnest. 

“It’s going to get better. It won’t be this hard forever.”

Atti closes his eyes and rubs his forehead tenuously. He just wants to sleep and sleep and sleep forever. He doesn’t want to deal with his mother or his father or the arguments they have or how all the papers his parents signed used his dead name. He doesn’t want any of it for any longer.

He pulls his legs up to his chest and groans into his knees. “I just wish everything was easier.”

Eddie purses his lips. “I know. Me too.”

The light they’re at turns green, and Eddie focuses back on the road. The rain continues to fall. The minutes continue to pass in silence.

Eventually, as they turn a corner, Atti lifts his head. “I’m sorry.”

Eddie glances at him quickly. “For what?”

Atti shrugs in exasperation. He’s so tired all the time now, he can barely motivate himself to get up in the mornings. “For coming out.”

Eddie sucks in a breath. “Atticus-”

“It’s okay. I know this was my fault.” Atti exhales shakily, his hands coming up to his eyes as the tears start to come. His voice breaks, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not- Atticus, this isn’t-” Eddie sputters, trying to navigate the slick roads while also dealing with his suddenly sobbing child in the passenger seat. “Atticus, none of this is your fault.”

Atti crosses his arms over his head and tries the best he can to disappear into the seat. Thunder explodes somewhere behind them, and a moment later, lightning splits the sky in two.

A few minutes later, Eddie pulls into an old parking lot that Atti’s mother would probably refer to as a _‘crack spot’_ and haphazardly puts the car in park. Without the noise of the tires, the car is quiet except for the pattering of rain.

Eddie unbuckles his seatbelt and leans over to where his son is still crumpled in the seat. He pulls futilely at Atti’s hands to try and see his face. “Atticus. Hey, look at me.”

Atti shakes his head and whimpers pitifully. Eddie combs his fingers through his hair and shushes his son gently. “Atticus. Atti.” It’s the first time the nickname is used. “Look at me, please.”

Hesitantly, Atti raises his head and looks at his father. His face is red and streaked with tears, and he rubs a hand across his nose. 

“There he is.” Eddie hums and wipes away the wet sheen that’s accumulated on his cheeks. Atti rolls his eyes and wipes vigorously at his eyes with his palms. Eddie holds his face and talks him through it, right there in the abandoned parking lot.

“Your mother and I were rarely happy with each other, Atticus, even in the best of times. This would’ve happened eventually. Nothing you did or could have done had any impact on this.”

Atti closes his eyes and ducks his head, his forehead thumping against Eddie’s shoulder. Eddie wraps his arm around him and rocks him slowly. 

“I’m glad you came out. I’m so proud of you, Atticus. You’re my kid, and I love you. Always.”

Atti grips the front of his father’s shirt with an intensity that could only come from a kid with a broken heart. “Promise?”

“Of course. Of course.” Eddie holds him just as tightly, knowing with every part of him that things are going to be much harder for Atti now that he’s alone with Myra half of the time. There’s only so much Eddie can do for him from here on out.

And then, an hour and a half later, Eddie drops Atticus off at his mother’s and leaves him there for the next week. Atti watches from the porch, his mother’s hand on his shoulder, as his father drives away. He wonders how they’ll go on when nothing will ever be the same again.

At approximately six o’ clock the next evening, Atticus Kaspbrak takes a phone call.

He, Henley and her father are eating fast food downstairs, sitting on the carpet under the golden glow of the lamps, as Eddie watches them from the coffee table in disdain. Ben and Beverly are at the bar, flirting openly and chatting over their food and drinks.

“Dad, we’re having dinner, and you’re missing out on it.” Atti tells him, leaning over the side of the couch to steal a bite of his father’s salad. 

“Forgive me if I’m not really feeling floor-cuisine, Atti.”

Henley says something, presumably to Atti, through a mouthful of food. He looks back at her over his shoulder. “What?”

She says it again, even more unclear.

“Henley, I don’t speak Ukrainian-”

“I said,” She finally swallows, and punctuates clearly, “Dad and I eat floor-cuisine all the time.” 

Richie scowls at her and punches her arm playfully.  
“Henley and Richie eat floor-cuisine all the time, Dad.” Atti repeats matter-of-factly, like Henley isn’t even there. He says it just to see how mentioning Richie will make his father react. But Eddie just hums, staring Atti down and continuing to eat his salad. Maybe he knows Atti’s onto him. Maybe it’s just his face.

Richie scoots to sit with his back against the couch, looking up at Eddie, and Atti sits on his ankles to make room. 

“Eds, it’s like a picnic without the all the germs and bugs-”

“No,” Eddie interrupts and swats his hand away when he attempts to steal a crouton, “it’s twice as unhygienic, and frankly-”

Atti notices the way his father’s eyes light up and a smile tugs at his lips when he argues with Richie. Something that never happened when he argued with Mother. Their arguments were always passive-aggressive, condescending bickering. Never this playful banter that he and Richie are partaking in right now. Atticus wonders if he should be concerned that he’s never seen his father this happy before. Part of it hurts, something strange and foreign in his gut.

“Told you.” Henley says to him through a mouthful of chicken wing, both their parents too absorbed in teasing each other to notice. Atti turns to her and wrinkles his nose in mock disgust. She taps her forehead with a fork. “Figured it out with my big brain.”

“He _told_ you, you absolute dweeb.” He hisses and rolls over to sit next to her. She shakes her head at him.

“I don’t recall that.”

“Henley-”

“I figured it out. I’m smart, Atti.”

He sighs, “Yeah okay, genius, you have barbecue sauce on your glasses.”

She swears quietly and uses her shirt to frantically wipe at her lenses. Atti laughs and turns back to his own meal, catching his father in the middle of holding Richie by his chin and grinning, their faces suspiciously close. He guesses they've forgone subtlety now.

Richie catches his eye and he absolutely withers under Atti’s stare, the smile dropping from his mouth so quickly it’s almost comical. Atti snorts and refocuses on his dinner, stifling his laughter.

When his phone starts to ring on the coffee table, he can almost feel the happy, calm air shatter completely. He watches it skitter feebly across the table top for several long seconds, before Eddie picks it up. Atti sees his face fall for a quick moment, and then he blinks and hands the phone to Atti, emotionless.

“It’s your mother.”

Atti takes the phone numbly and looks at the name on the screen. He doesn’t want to answer it; but he knows if he doesn’t he’ll just make things worse. He’s been avoiding her calls for days now, and it’s definitely been a week since he left home. He’s lucky she hasn’t sent out a SWA T team to find him yet.

“I’ll call her back.” He says to a silent room, clicking the phone off and placing it face down on the floor next to him. Henley narrows her eyes at him, and he glares at her, silently telling her to back the fuck off. 

“When did you last talk to her?” Eddie asks, suspicious.

“Yesterday.” Atti lies. It’s been two and a half days. She’ll scream at him the second he answers. His father seems satisfied though, and goes back to his meal.

And then, less than a minute later, his phone rings again. His fork stops in midair on its way to his mouth. Beverly and Ben look up from the bar. Eddie looks pointedly at the phone, then at his son. 

“Atticus.”

“I’m not picking it up.” His heart begins to pound.

Eddie sighs, “Atti, answer the phone.”

Atti grabs the phone and tosses it to Eddie. “You answer it.”

Eddie glares at him and hands the phone back defiantly. “Atti, she's your mother.”

Atti scoots away from the phone. He doesn’t want to talk to her. “Okay, and? _You_ married her.”

“Ooh, burn.” Richie interjects, and Eddie smacks the back of his head.

“Dad, I don’t want to talk to her.”

“I don’t want to talk to her either!”

“So we agree, we both won’t answer the-”

“Atticus, answer the phone.”

“I’ll answer it.” Henley offers.

“No.” They both say in unison. She raises her hands in defense. 

Eddie scowls firmly. The phone rings patiently. “Atticus Edward. Answer the goddamn phone.”

He throws his fork down, ignoring how it clatters noisily to the carpet. “Oh my God, fucking fine. I’ll answer the goddamn phone.”

He snatches the phone from his father’s grip and stands quickly, almost kneeing Henley in the face. He doesn’t even bother looking at Eddie before he bolts out of the room, phone still buzzing in his white-knuckles hand. His heart is pounding. He doesn’t want to talk to her.

Outside, cars are passing and crickets are chirping. A few pigeons, pecking at crumbs on the sidewalk, are startled into flight when he opens the doors. He watches them take off and leave the Inn behind, wishing he could do the same. He doesn’t breath until he’s sitting down on the steps, and then he looks at the screen, breathes in deep, and takes the call.

He holds it to his ear silently for a moment, and then, tentatively, “Momma?”

“Atticus! Oh thank goodness, you picked up! What on Earth is going on, I’ve been calling you for days!”

Her voice makes his stomach churn and sweat erupt on his brow and nose. She always makes him nervous like this. He closes his eyes and talks over her, “I’m sorry, cell reception has been really bad out here, Momma-”

She abruptly stops talking, and he hears her cluck her tongue over the static of the line. His blood goes cold at her sudden silence. “Atticus, dear, why would you lie to me?”

His mouth goes dry and he almost chokes on his tongue. “What?”

She sighs and what she says next hits him like a sledgehammer to the gut. “Atticus, I know you’re not on a camping trip.”

He almost throws up right there. Nausea swirls heavy and sickly hot in his gut. He feels the sweat start to deep into his shirt, the humid evening air enveloping him in a suffocating warmth. His skin feels hot. “Mom, what-”

“Do not lie to me Atticus, you know it _breaks my heart_ when you lie to your mother.” Her voice turns sour and sad, making his heart twist. “How could you lie to me, after everything I’ve done for you? Do you hate me that much, Atticus?”

“No,” he shudders, shaking his head violently, “no, Momma, I didn’t- I don’t.”

“It doesn’t matter now, Atticus. What matters is you telling me why on Earth you’re in Maine.”

He closes his eyes and swallows down the bile in his throat. It’s becoming harder to breathe, but he left his inhaler up in his room. “I-...Mom, I-”

“I trusted you enough to let you be alone for a week, I was so giving to let you do that, Atticus, and what do I get in return?” Her voice is condescending, the same way she used to scold his father. “My own child, lying to my face.”

He shakes his head, voice cracking, “Momma, hold on- I had a reason, I swear.”

“Oh, really?” She mocks, “Do tell, Atticus.”

“Mom, Dad was in the hospital, I had to come and see him, you-”

“Your father!” Myra hisses, like it’s a revelation. “I knew it. How did I know this had something to do with him!”

“No!” Atti cries, all the emotion in him turning into a fervent energy that needs to be released. “Mom, he didn’t know about this, he was _mad_ I came here!”

“Do you know how much I have sacrificed for the two of you? I should have known your father would do something like this-”

Tears begin to well up in his eyes. What was he thinking? “He didn’t- Mom, please just listen, please-”

“All I’ve _done_ is listen, Atticus. I listened when you told me you wanted to be a boy-”

“What?” His voice cracks and the tears start to fall. “No! No, Mom, I’m not talking about that, I’m not talking about my transition!”

“I listened even though it hurt and I couldn’t understand, Atticus!” She yells over him, even when he starts to cry.

“I’m not talking about that!” He sobs, his head falling into his hands and he begins to shake. She’s so loud.

“And I listened when your father told me he wanted a divorce! I listened, and I still let him see you even though he didn’t deserve it after everything he did to us!”

He can’t even talk anymore, he’s practically choking on his sobs, his body shaking so hard it feels like his bones will break. His lungs feel like they will pop with his laborious breathing. Cars keep passing, completely unaware of his breakdown on the steps. 

“I don’t mean to make you upset, dear.” She tells him, voice suddenly soft. She does that all the time. Yells at him and scolds him, and then when he breaks she softens. “But you know you did this to yourself. You shouldn’t have lied to me, Atticus. After everything I’ve done for you. You lied to me.”

Something comes to him, suddenly, without any guide. “How did you know I was in Maine?”

The line goes silent, and static fills his ear. 

“Mom.” He says more firmly. He thinks he knows how she knew. But he wants to hear her say it. “How did you know where I was.”

“I tracked you, Atti. From your phone.” She sounds a little nervous about saying it. She should feel nervous, since the words spark a match that lights a fire in his stomach. As quickly as the panic and sadness had come, fury takes its place.

Like she can sense this over the phone, she talks faster. “Don’t get upset. I did it for your own good, Atti. You know I worry all the time, and this was just a way-”

He hangs up on her and stares at the phone in his hands. Anger blooms fresh and palpable in his gut, something he’s felt many times before but rarely ever acted on. That changes today, he decides as he stands up. He wants to chuck the phone into the street, or throw it off the cliff into the quarry. He wants to burn it or decimate it with a sledgehammer or dissolve it in acid. Maybe flushing it down the toilet will do instead.

He keeps his head ducked as he goes back inside, ignoring how the conversation stops as he enters and how his father calls out to him. He ignores everything and just runs up the stairs to their room. He throws the door open and then shoves it closed behind him, and the noise definitely lets everyone downstairs know something’s wrong.

He doesn’t know if destroying his phone will actually work, his mother probably already knows exactly where he is, but he doesn’t care. He throws it into the toilet and then punches down the handle. It doesn’t go down the drain though, just rattles defiantly around the bowl as the water pushes it around. It only makes him angrier. He reaches down and grabs it out of the cold water, then turns and chucks it out the window just as the bathroom door opens.

Eddie looks to where the phone disappeared out the window, and then looks at Atti. “Should we talk about whatever that was?”

Atti stares back at him, his face still wet. Eddie softens, his eyes turning sad. “What happened, Atti?”

The tenderness in his voice makes Atti break again. The anger’s gone, and the sadness comes back. He’s always been like this, a constant whirlwind of emotion, all of his inner gears twisting and turning so quickly it’s hard to keep up with. It makes his head spin.

Atti wipes lamely at his face, sniffing loudly. Eddie sighs, and looks down at the tiled floor. Slowly, he reaches forward and wipes Atti’s cheek gently. Atti cries harder and his father steps forward to pull him into his arms. Atti obliges, letting his father hug him and comb through his hair like he did when he was little. It’s been a while since they’ve done this.

“I hate her.” He says, muffled into Eddie’s shirt. Eddie rubs his back and shushes him, shaking his head.

“You don’t hate her, Atti.”

Atti’s grip tightens around his back. “She was _tracking_ me, Dad. From my phone. Behind my back, she lied to me!”

Eddie pauses, then makes a noise in his throat. “So that’s why you shotputted the phone out the window.”

Atti laughs and moves his head, revealing the wet spots his tears left on Eddie’s shirt. “Shotput’s not a verb, Dad.”

Eddie laughs and tilts Atti’s head up to look at him. They’re quiet for a moment, except for the sounds of the crickets outside and the glasses clinking downstairs.

“Dad.”

“What is it?”

“You should have sole custody of me.”

Eddie blinks. Then he frowns and tilts his head. “I know you’re upset, Atti-”

“I’m serious.” Atti tells him, stepping away to look at him fully. His face is unreadable; he’s shocked, but it isn’t a frown but not exactly a smile either. “I want to go back to court, Dad. I don’t want to see Mom anymore.”

Eddie runs a hand over his eyes and puts his other on his hip. “Atticus, this isn’t the type of conversation we should be having right now.”

“Why not?”

“Because, that would be a huge decision, a decision you need to think really carefully on. This isn’t something you decide on impulsively after your mother makes you mad, Atticus.”

Atti scowls. “I _have_ thought about it, Dad. I’m not a child, I know what I’m talking about.”

Eddie remains unfazed and grows stern. “I never said you were a child.”

“You didn’t have to _say_ anything.” Atti growls, pushing past him and into the bedroom. “Mom treats me like shit. I don’t want to see her anymore!”

Eddie sighs and turns around to face him. “Well then maybe we should sit down and talk to her about this. We can sort this out.”

“No!” Atti whirls on him, growing desperate. He just wants someone on his side for once. “Dad, I’ve tried to talk to her, I’ve been trying to talk to her for thirteen years! She doesn’t listen!”

“She will Atti, you just have to get through to her-”

“I’ve tried! What part of that do you not get?” Atti yells, and Eddie purses his lips.

“There’s no need to yell, Atticus.”

Atti groans and rolls his eyes. He flops down into the armchair in the corner and covers his face with his hands. He looks back up after a second.

“Do you not _want_ full custody of me?” Eddie breathes in harshly, but Atti doesn’t give him a chance to respond. “You don’t want me ruining your divorced bachelor lifestyle?”

Eddie makes a face. “What the hell does that mean?”

Atti glares at him but doesn’t say anything. His father probably already has plans to move to California to be with Richie Fucking Tozier. He grits his teeth and looks down instead.

“Atticus, listen.” Eddie exhales loudly and comes to sit on the bed opposite him. “I know your mother is-...an _aggressive_ person. Trust me. I was married to her for fifteen years.”

Atticus thinks about how it would have been longer if he hadn’t gotten the fuck out the second the going got tough.

“But she _loves_ you, and she _does_ care about you. Half of the shit she does, she does because she cares so much. You have to understand she doesn’t mean to hurt you.”

“But she _hurts_ me!” Atti looks up, hands shaking. Eddie clamps his mouth shut. “She hurts me, Dad! Doesn’t that count for something? Who gives a fuck why she does it or if she even means it, when she hurts me all the time?”

His voice breaks and he closes his mouth again, his hands going back to his face. Eddie is silent for several minutes. Neither of them speak.

Eventually, Eddie shifts on the bed. “I’m sorry.”

Atti glances up at him as he continues. “I’m sorry she hurts you. I really am.”

“But-” he swallows, and Atti grows more frustrated by the second, “children...children need their mothers. She knows how to take care of you; more than I ever could.”

“No.” Atti sighs, eyes closing as he stands. “That’s not true.”

Eddie turns around after him. “Atticus, you’re all she has. E-everything she does, she does it because she- she’s protecting you. She told me herself, Atticus. She tracks your phone to know that you’re safe-”

Atticus stops dead in his tracks. His father continues to talk. His lungs feel squeezed, compressed, like he’s breathing in something dense and humid. He needs his inhaler, but the thought of it makes him want to puke. He turns around slowly.

Eddie sees the look on his face and shuts his mouth. 

“You knew.”

It’s not a question. He can see it in his father’s eyes, in the guilt that twists in his face. He doesn’t even have to ask.

“You knew she was tracking me.”

Eddie breathes in apprehensively. “Atticus, listen-”

“Oh my _God_!” Atti shouts, not caring that he’s loud. “You fucking knew? You let her do that to me?”

Eddie stands quickly. “She was worried- _we_ were worried, Atticus.” He laughs nervously as Atti runs a hand through his hair. “It was years ago, I completely forgot about it until now.”

“What the fuck is your problem!” He screams, voice cracking, his face twisting in an ugly sadness and anger he hasn’t felt before. _Betrayal_. Bitter and unwelcome. “I trusted you! I thought we were on the same side!”

Eddie shakes his head, starting to breathe heavier. “We’re a family, Atticus. There are no sides-”

“Well I know that _now_!” Atti walks to the bathroom, then spins on his heels and goes the other way. He’s a loose cannon, ready to fucking blow, not knowing or caring who he’ll hurt. “You lied to me! You fucking lied to me!”

“No, I didn’t.” Eddie shakes his head. “Atti, Atticus, I never-”

“God, don’t talk to me. Please don’t fucking talk to me.” His hands fist into his hair, wanting to pull it out. He wants to fucking die. He wants to fucking punch something like the guys in Henley’s movies do.

“Atticus, I’m sorry.” Eddie tells him, sounding panicked. He swallows, “I’m sorry we did that, but just, listen for a second, okay?” 

“You don’t get it.” Atti says and shakes his head.. 

Eddie raises an eyebrow. “Trust me, I _do_ get it.”

Atti scowls at him, “No, you don’t get it. Because you divorced her and ran away the second shit got tough.”

Eddie pauses, his breaths coming faster. “That’s not fair. You _know_ that’s not fair.”

He doesn’t care. It wasn’t fair to Atti either. “And so what? You want me to forgive you?”

Eddie looks like he’s on the verge of crying, but Atti’s already past that point. Boom goes the cannon. 

“You left me there with her. You left and guess who had to pick up the pieces? Because it wasn’t Mom.”

Eddie covers his mouth. “Atticus.”

Atti moves to the door, ready to fucking run. To fucking run like his father had. His hand is on the knob when Eddie speaks again, voice trembling.

“Atticus, I- I’m sorry.”

Atti bites his tongue and stalls for a moment. And then, without another word, he opens the door and leaves.

It isn’t until he’s run back outside, crumbling to the sidewalk, that he starts to cry again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hehehehe it’s angst time babey!!! happy valentine’s day >:)))
> 
> comments and kudos are very welcome!!


	6. the story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _let me tell you a story_   
>  _about a boy and a girl;_   
>  _it’s kind of short, kind of boring_   
>  _but the end is a whirl_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> edited!!!
> 
> ok guess we’re on an every-other-week schedule now wow sorry about that i have no excuse
> 
>  **trigger warning** for some mild alcoholism/drug use towards the end. nothing explicit, just discussion and description of richie’s addiction

Richie knocks hesitantly on the door, then when he gets no response, he knocks again. “Eds?”

“Just open it.” Henley says from behind him. He rolls his eyes and ignores her.

“Eddie, can I come in?”

“Just open-” Henley reaches for the doorknob and he stops her by covering her face with his hand and shoving her away gently.

“Hens, please go bother Bev.” He tells her and when she scowls up at him, he shoos her away. Reluctantly, she trudges down the stairs to join Bev, who shoots him a worried look from the landing. He nods to her reassuringly and quietly opens the door.

Eddie’s sitting on the bed, his head in his hands. The sight of him makes Richie’s chest constrict; it was obvious there was a fight, from the noise and then Atti storming out of the Inn crying, but Richie wasn’t positive until now. He closes the door softly behind him and leans against it.

“Hey.”

Eddie doesn’t move, but says into his hands. “I think I messed up, Rich.”

Richie sighs, hands fiddling with the doorknob behind him. “That bad, huh?”

“It’s bad.” Eddie says, finally looking up to stare blankly at the wall. “ _Bad_ bad.”

“ _Bad_ bad.” Richie repeats, exhaling through his teeth and clapping his hands in front of him. He opens his mouth, and then when he finds no joke to make, he closes it again. The room stays silent. So instead of making a joke, he just walks over to sit down next to Eddie on the bed.

Eddie leans into him, and Richie wraps his arm around his waist, his thumb rubbing the skin of Eddie’s hip where his shirt has ridden up a bit. Eddie takes his hands away from his face and opts to hide it in Richie’s chest instead.

“You want me to go get him?”

“Is he downstairs?”

Richie winces. “No, he went outside.”

Eddie groans. “Fuck.”

Richie kisses the top of his head, sighing, “Yeah. Running outside is definitely like a _code red_ when dealing with teens.”

Eddie moves closer, wrapping his arms around Richie’s chest and pressing their knees together.

“I can still get him, if you need me to. Henley’s pissed at me half the time she's conscious, so angry kids are kind of a daily routine for me-”

“He’ll want to be left alone.”

“Okay,” Richie hums, “and when he’s ready to talk you two can work out whatever argument you got into.”

Eddie curls further into himself. “I don’t think it’s the kind of thing we can just _‘talk out_ ’.”

Richie rubs his back soothingly. “Oh, you drama queen, yes you can talk it out. Families fight all the time.”

“I hurt him, Richie. I hurt my son.” Eddie lifts his head and there are tears in his eyes. Richie frowns.

“Eds. What happened?”

Eddie stands and steps away from the bed. He ducks his head and wraps his arms around himself defensively. “He wants me to have sole custody of him.”

“Oh,” is Richie’s response. He makes a confused face behind Eddie’s back. “And… that’s bad?”

Eddie exhales through his nose. “No, it’s- I…” He scratches the back of his neck and turns to look at Richie again. “It’s not bad.”

“Okay,” Richie starts, still trying to understand.

“It’s just… don’t you think, he needs his mother?” Richie pauses. He doesn’t know shit about mothers. But before he can respond, Eddie continues, “Like, mothers know what's best for their children, right? And children need their mothers?”

Richie shrugs. “Well. Henley didn't need hers.” 

Eddie blinks. “Right.”

Richie leans forward, hands clasped on his knees. “Atti doesn’t need his mother, per se. He’s got _you_ , doesn't he?”

Eddie snorts, like it’s a ridiculous question. “Yes, he’ll always have me.”  


“Well, there you go-”

“But,” Eddie struggles, gaze flicking between Richie and the carpet and the bed, “I’ve never… raised him without Myra.”

“Eds, you’re divorced.”

Eddie rolls his eyes and begins to pace nervously. “I know that. But even then, she… you know, she took care of all the doctor’s appointments and his social life and everything else he needed.” Eddie pauses in front of the suitcases against the wall and stares at them intently. “I just… took a backseat.”

“Listen, not that I’m...assuming, or anything, but his mother…?”

Eddie bites his lips and looks at the wall. “Isn’t the greatest person.”

“Right.” Richie looks at his hands in his lap, trying to remember all he could about Eddie’s own mother. If Derry pretty much cursed them all to relive their past traumas, then it’s possible…

“Richie. I think I’ve-” He sucks in a heavy breath, then exhales it. “Do you remember much about my mother?” He asks, like he can read Richie’s mind.

“Ol’ missus K? How could I forget the prettiest lady-”

“I’m serious, Rich.” Eddie glares at him.

“Right,” Richie swallows down the old, worn-out joke, “sorry. Yes, I remember your mother.”

_‘I remember your mother and how mad she made you and how you’d sneak out your window to find me when you were grounded. I remember how she blamed us whenever you got hurt when all we wanted to do was heal you too.’_

Eddie looks back at the wall, his hands picking obsessively at the hem of his shirt. “I think. I think I’ve put my son in the same situation I was in. With my mother.”

Richie reaches up and takes one of his hands. “I hate to say it, but… it sounds like you have, Eds.”

“Yeah.” Eddie whispers, and closes his eyes. “I’m a shit father.”

Richie inhales sharply. “Eddie-”

Eddie pulls away and runs a hand through his hair, “ _God_ , how could I let this happen? I’m so stupid!”

“Eddie, it’s not the end of the world, listen-”

“I’m just like my mother, I’m just like my fucking mother.” He swears and rubs a hand over his eyes. 

Richie sighs, “Eddie, come sit. Please, sit down.”

Eddie stands still, glancing at the bed, and then slowly sits down. Richie brings his legs up onto the mattress as he turns to face him.

“You’re not a shit father.” Richie starts, holding up a hand when Eddie opens his mouth. “You’re _not._ You made a mistake, like literally every living person does. What matters now is you, fixing this.”

“How can I ever fix this?” Eddie asks earnestly, sounding desperate and hopeless. Richie frowns at him.

“Well, for starters, you can talk to your kid.”

Eddie pauses, then shakes his head, dismissing the suggestion. “No, he won’t want to talk to me.”

Richie rolls his eyes. “Okay, sucks for him. _Everyone_ hates talking shit out, it’s like the most uncomfortable thing in the world. But we still have to do it.”

Eddie is quiet for several moments in a row, staring at his hands. Eventually he looks up, and the color has returned to his face. “I hate that you got better at this than me.”

Richie snorts, moving closer. Eddie leans his head against his shoulder and sighs, clearly wiped out beyond belief. Richie combs a hand through his hair and uses his grip to pull him into a kiss. Eddie’s fingertips come up to his jaw, hovering delicately over his stubble as they kiss slow and gentle.

“Comes with experience, Eddie my love.” Richie murmurs when he pulls away, hand smoothing down the plane of Eddie’s back. Eddie kisses him again, twice on the mouth and then once on his cheek before he lets his head fall to Richie’s shoulder. Richie perches his chin on top of Eddie’s head, his gaze going to the ceiling.

They sit like that, curled together on the bed until Richie remembers who he’d seen sitting on the fire escape outside the window.

For once in his godforsaken life, Atticus Kaspbrak actually wants to be alone. 

He’s sitting on the steps of the fire escape behind the Inn, watching the sun set behind the trees. He feels like he just ran a hundred miles, or swam to the bottom of the ocean and back. He’s angry. And sad, but mostly angry. Pissed as shit and furious. That his father would do something like that; after Atti thought they were in the same boat for their entire lives.

The door at the top of the fire escape opens, and he jumps. His grip tightens around the metal railing and he closes his eyes. There’s a pause, and then footsteps start to descend the creaking metal steps. The cold, rusted iron feels soothing against his heated skin when he presses his forehead against it. 

When the footsteps stop behind him, he opens his eyes and mouth. “I don’t want to talk to you.” He snaps, gripping the railing tighter.

There’s a few seconds of silence, and then they sit down on the steps behind him, and Atti furrows his brow. He sees the printed button up and the jeans out of the corner of his eye and he sighs.

“Sorry. Thought you were Dad.”

Richie shrugs his broad shoulders. “It’s fine. Not like I haven’t heard that before.”

Atticus doesn’t laugh, just rolls his eyes. This isn’t what he needs right now. He doesn’t need stupid jokes and some feigned advice. He needs to be alone. Maybe for the next few days. Maybe for forever.

“Why are you out here?” He asks, trying to make it as uncomfortable as possible so he’ll get the hint and leave.

“It’s a nice night.” He sighs, kicking his feet up and leaning back. “And just look at that sunset.”

Atti closes his eyes in annoyance. “You can watch sunsets alone.”

Richie makes a quiet noise. “Don’t want to.”

Atti grits his teeth and turns to look at him through narrowed eyes. Richie tilts his head curiously at him, the sunset making the lenses of his glasses glow. 

Atti turns away again and slumps his chin into the palm of his hand. “Right.” He says as he looks at the sunset. It is pretty, glowing and vibrant and beautiful, but that’s not what Atti is thinking about right now. It seems ridiculous; that he could be doing anything as peaceful as watching the sunset while he’s feeling this bad.

“Did Dad send you out here?” Atti asks miserably, knowing the answer is probably yes.

But instead, Richie just shakes his head, and simply says, “Nope.”

“You sure?” Atti prods, but Richie remains surprisingly calm.

“Think I’d remember something like that.” Richie responds simply, and if he’s caught onto what Atti is doing, Atti certainly can’t tell. Atti feels his anger diffuse slowly, replaced by a small pang of guilt, until Richie speaks again. “But, let’s say… _hypothetically_ … he did send me out here-”

“I fucking knew it,” Atti sighs, “what did he tell you?”

“Well, it’s a hypothetical situation.” Richie tells him, shifting on the staircase. “And in this hypothetical situation, he- actually advised against me coming out here-”

“Oh, really?” 

“-Yes, really. But I wanted to make sure you were okay.” Richie finishes, clapping his hands together, then adds, “In this hypothetical situation.”

“So,” Atti starts, playing along, “in this hypothetical situation, you’re out here on behalf of my dad?”

Richie makes a face, like they’re bargaining, “Well, it sure would help if I heard your side of the story.”

Atti purses his lips, knowing he’s just been lured into a trap. “Right. Of course it would.”

“Of course it would,” Richie repeats, smiling at him. He has a nice face, if Atti had to admit it. Maybe Dad didn’t choose the wrong one after all.

Atti sighs as he turns the rest of his body towards Richie, pulling his legs up to his chest. “It’s stupid, really. It’s dumb.”

“Dumb and stupid, got it.”

“I wanted Dad to have full custody of me, and he said no. That’s it.”

Richie hums. “He said no.”

Atti nods, then blinks. “Well. He didn’t really say _no,_ I guess, but he was obviously against it.” 

“What makes you say that?”

“Well-” Atti groans, knowing he’ll have to explain the whole situation, “he said it was a bad idea, and that I should think really hard on it.”

“Have you thought about it?”

“Uh, duh? I’ve only been thinking about it for like three years? Ever since I found out sole custody _existed_ I wanted to be away from Mom.”

“Why didn’t you bring it up back then?”

Atti sighs and looks down at his hands. “Because. Mom would have lost her mind. I don’t even want to think about what would’ve happened.” 

“And that’s changed now?”

“No.” Atti sighs, pursing his lips. “I was just- scared, I guess. Of her. Of what she’d say or do.” He shakes his head violently, “God, why am I even talking to you again?”

Richie laughs it off, and Atti gets that creeping feeling he doesn’t understand. That creeping feeling that no one could understand how he feels. He’s here, sitting and talking with someone in view of the sunset, watching cars and bikes pass by, and yet he feels so infinitely alone.

But then Richie says, “I knew a kid like you once.”

Atti looks up at him again. He doesn’t look like he’s joking, his eyes and face are serious. “What do you mean _‘like me’_?”

Richie breathes in, his shoulders tensing, and then he says on an exhale, “Well, he didn’t have a father. But his mother was one-hundred-percent grade A psycho.”

Atti raises his brows. “Like my mother?”

Richie squirms. “Well. I’m assuming, is all. Am I wrong?”

Atti huffs a laugh through his nose, “Not really.” Then he pauses and thinks about what it would be like to only have his mother. “I’d hate it if I didn’t have my dad.”

Richie nods, and turns his head away, unreadable. “Yeah. I know.”

Atti looks up and scans him. His hands are clasped in his lap, and he’s looking away. He’s about to ask about the whole _‘you being in love with my dad’_ thing when Richie turns back to him.

“Well, anyway, I was kinda close friends with this kid, and I knew him pretty well. And, y’know he hated that woman for the way she treated him, because she made him so afraid of- of almost everything. Really treated him like shit.”

Richie falls quiet, smiling at his hands. “But he was the bravest guy I knew. Still is. He was so strong, even if he was scared most of the time.” He rubs his ring finger as he stares at the quickly fading sun “He’s saved my life more than once.”

Atti remains quiet, letting Richie dwell in the fog of memories that only he knows, that Atti’s dying to learn about. But eventually, he breaks, shaking his head in confusion, “Well, where is he now? Did he ever get away from here?”

Richie nods and laughs, “Oh yeah, he got out of here. Soon as he graduated, that guy got the fuck out of dodge.”

“And?” Atti urges, one hand planted on the metal grate below them, eager and intrigued.

Richie scratches at his neck. “Well. I’m not sure. We lost touch when I- see, I moved before we graduated. My dad got a job in New Orleans, and I left town.”

“Oh.” Atti looks down, disappointed. He had been looking forward to hearing the end of the story.

Richie must notice his sudden disappointment, because he seems to wake up a little and leans forward. “But, hey. He’s doing pretty well, I hear.”

Atti smiles, his eyes feeling wet. Something in him sparks, something faint and buried deep down. Something he thought he’d lost a really long time ago. Hope. “Really? Scared little kid like me?”

Richie looks at him and smiles sadly. “ _Brave_ little kid like you.”

It comes quickly, like most powerful emotions do. It’s not foreign to Atti, the rapid, split-second surge of tears in his eyes, the abrupt clenching in his throat. He blinks it back, ducking his head and feeling his face begin to twist. “Oh.” Is all he manages to croak.

Richie chuckles softly, but it isn’t patronizing, and a second later Atti feels a hand on his back and Richie speaks quietly. “Yeah, he’s got a good job - granted, a boring ass job-”

Atti snorts wetly and barks a laugh, scrubbing his palms across his tear-slicked cheeks. 

“-But, y’know, it’s still a good job. And his kid is pretty cool, so, can’t all be winners, I guess.”

Atti laughs again, choking on sobs and giggles at the same time, something he’s never felt, and he wipes his eyes fruitlessly. “Right.”

“You remind me of him sometimes.” Richie tells him when Atti moves to sit next to him on the stairs. “You’re stubborn and pissy, like him.”

“Gee, thanks.” Atti snorts.

Richie shakes his head, then says, his voice a little sad, “You look like him too.”

Atti smiles weakly, “And he’s doing okay, now?”

Richie shrugs smugly. “Well, go ask your dad.”

Atti doesn’t get it at first. He tilts his head to the side and wipes his nose. “Did Dad know him too?”

Richie smiles and says purposefully, “Atti.”

Atti blinks and suddenly everything clicks into place. “Oh. Dad _is_ the kid.”

“Yeah.” Richie says as he nods along with Atti.

“Oh,” Atti says dumbly, then, louder and with more meaning, “ _Oh._ ”

Richie nods and brushes the hair away from where it was stuck to Atti’s cheek with gentle fingers. Atti goes over the whole story Richie just told him, and replaces the mental image of the mystery boy with a young version of his father. Do they really look as similar as everyone says they do?

“My dad saved your life? Like actually?”

“Yeah,” Richie nods, his eyes soft and warm and it makes Atti swell with happiness. 

“Wow.”

Richie looks at him, grinning. “Wow is right, dude.”

Atti laughs as the crickets begin to chirp and the air grows colder around them. A car alarm goes off down the street.

“I had meant to tell you earlier,” Richie says, sounding nervous as he turns toward Atti, “but Eddie- your dad… got hurt saving my life.”

Atti blinks. He thinks about the stitches up wound in his father’s stomach that he bandages every evening. He tries to think of how someone could get a wound that size. And why. Why his dad would ever put himself in a situation where he could be hurt like that.

“Sorry.” Richie offers half heartedly, and he sounds close to crying.

“That’s not-” Atti shakes his head, confused. “He wouldn’t.” He scoffs and looks away as Richie sucks in a breath. Eventually, he looks at him again. “Are you serious?”

Richie nods solemnly, then cracks a weak smile in his direction. “Wish I wasn’t.” His voice seems like an attempt at a joke, but it’s shaky and thin. Atti turns forward, his arms crossing over his chest.

They’re quiet until the sky goes dark. The stars begin to materialize out of a purple ink sky. The black silhouettes of the trees sway dreamily in the night breeze. It feels like they're sitting on the precipice of a new story.

“Do you love him?” Atti asks quietly, looking over at him. Richie’s religiously not looking at him, instead staring straight forward. The shadows of the night make him look older than he is.

“Yes.” Is his eventual reply, barely a whisper. He looks down at his hands, runs his fingers over his palm slowly, like with meaning. “How could I not?”

Atti’s smile is small, but he feels the calm spread over him like a blanket. He slides closer to Richie and leans against his arm, drawing his knees back up to his chest. Richie looks down at him and smiles before tossing an arm over his shoulders.

“Henley told me anyway, so I knew.”

Richie snickers, “Of course she told you.”

“Yeah. I would’ve figured it out sooner or later even if she hadn’t. Neither of you are all that subtle.”

Richie shakes his head, and Atti feels rather than hears him laugh. “Neither of us _want_ to be, dude.”

Atti burrows closer into his side, and suddenly he knows with every part of him that things are going to be okay.

By the time Atti comes back inside, it’s well past dusk, and the air conditioner in the window has turned on for the night.

He closes the door softly behind him when he comes in, and Eddie all but leaps off the bed, eyes wide. Atti stares back at him, fiddling nervously with his hands.

“Hi.”

“Hey.” Eddie breathes, scared beyond belief.

They just stand there for a few seconds, the awkward, tense silence suffocating and nearly debilitating. Eddie clasps his hands together in front of him and opens his mouth at the exact same time Atti does.

“Go ahead-”

“Did you want to-”

They both stop talking at the same time. Atti laughs awkwardly and Eddie tries not to cringe too obviously. He really hopes Richie didn’t say anything too Richie-like to his kid. Why the hell did he let Richie talk him into this?

“You go ahead,” Atti says quietly, motioning to Eddie. He’s smiling even though Eddie can tell he’s not a huge fan of this either.

“Right,” he says, looking around and shifting on his fight before he ultimately decides on sitting back down on the bed. Atti takes a few cautious steps into the room, and rubs at his wrist the way he always does when he’s nervous. 

“Atticus,” Eddie starts, breathing in sharply, “I wanted to tell you I’m sorry. For how I treated you and how I spoke to you.”

Atti just looks at him, “Okay.”

“I realized that I was treating you the same way your mother did, and the same way my own mother treated me.” Eddie looks down at his hands and swallows the bile that’s threatening to rise in his throat. The one thing he’d promised to do as a father was to never be like his mother. “I never meant to treat you like that, Atticus.”

Atti shrugs absently and walks over to the end of the bed. “But you _did_.”

Eddie looks up at him. “I did. And you have every right to never forgive me for that.”

Atti rolls his eyes and sighs. “I’m not going to _never_ forgive you, Dad.”

Eddie hisses through his teeth. “I wouldn’t blame you if you did.”

“Well, whatever.” Atti sits down, but it’s still an uncomfortable ways away. “I get it, I guess. You were worried.”

“No,” Eddie says, because that’s the last mindset he wants Atti growing up with, “don’t- Atti, that doesn’t matter. I lied to you.”

“Is this supposed to be making me feel better?”

Eddie sucks in a breath and leans away. “No- I…”

Atti shakes his head and sighs, his head falling into his hands. Eddie grits his teeth and looks down at the floor. God, he’s making things even worse than they were. How can he ever explain his fucked up paranoia, or his fucked up decision skills and his fucked up anxiety? 

“You want to know why I was hesitant to the sole custody idea?”

Atti looks up at him. He looks hesitant, but he nods. “Yeah. I think that would be best.”

Eddie breathes in so deep he feels it in his stomach. “Because I’m scared, Atticus. I’m bad at this, I’ve never done this without your mother. What if- you regret it, or something? What if you like her more than me?”

Atti gawks at him. “First of all, that’s _literally_ impossible, I could _never_ like Mom more than you. Second of all, _that’s_ literally what’s holding you back?”

Eddie blinks at him and opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.

“Dad, that’s literally a shit-ass reason. You’re not bad, you’ve been raising me for thirteen years, and you’re a _hell_ of a lot better than Mom.”

“Atti-”

“I don’t care if you think you’re bad, Dad. I’m the kid here, I think I’d know. I want to live with you, all the time, with no Mom at all.”

Eddie looks at him for a few moments, and wonders how his son got this strong and this smart without Eddie even noticing. It’s like he turned his back for a second, and now he can’t protect him anymore. He’s a whole new kid.

_‘You can protect him.’_

“I didn’t know you resented me for the divorce.”  


Atti huffs and shakes his head. “That’s not- I don’t. Dad, I don’t resent you for that.”

“It seemed like you do. And rightfully so. I left you with her!” Eddie sighs, his hands clenching into white-knuckled fists in his lap. “It’s the one thing I told myself I wouldn’t do. I wanted to protect you- but I was-... I was _scared_.”

“So was _I._ ” 

“You weren’t scared a couple hours ago.” Eddie remarks dryly, not even trying to make a joke. 

“I was terrified.” 

They don’t speak for a while longer. When Atti was a child, they were the closest they could be. But ever since the divorce, it changed. They could barely ever be honest with each other like this. After a lengthy, pregnant pause, Atti leans closer and takes one of the hands in Eddie’s lap. 

“She hurt both of us. She’s _still_ hurting us.” His voice is a quiet plea, so different than the violent, angry yelling from a couple of hours ago. It makes Eddie’s heart hurt. “We _have_ to leave her. For good this time.”

_‘You can protect him. This is how. You can make up for what you’ve done starting right now.’_

“Yeah. You’re right.”

Atti nods frantically, eyes wide.

“Okay.” Eddie breathes in through his nose and then exhales it on a sigh. “Yeah. Alright.”

Atti blinks, his mouth working with no words coming out. “For real?”

Eddie allows himself a smile. “Yeah. For real. I’m going to get you out of there.”

Atti grins, and it’s like Eddie can breathe again. “Dad, oh my God.”

“It’s gonna be another whole year of court proceedings and social workers and testimonies and-”

Atti laughs, breathless and overjoyed. “Holy _shit_.”

“-but it’s worth it.”

Atti leaps up. “Dad, oh my God! Yeah, it’s worth it!” He wheezes and then laughs some more, cheeks red, and then he pauses. The giggles die down. “ _Dad_. I’m getting away from her.”

Eddie smiles sadly. “Yeah.”

Atti blinks. And then he blinks some more. He covers his mouth with his hands as Eddie stands.

“I’m getting away from her, Dad.”

Eddie swipes the first tear away with his thumb. “Are these good tears?”

Atti nods frantically and Eddie laughs. Then, he feels guilty again. He’s going to be feeling guilty for a while after this. 

“I’m sorry this didn’t happen sooner, Atticus.”

Atti sniffs and chokes on a laugh. “It’s okay.”

“I should’ve protected you, I’m so sorry.” Eddie takes his hands in his face and forces their matching eyes to meet. Atti blinks, and more crystalline tears roll down his cheeks.

“I forgive you.”

And then Eddie’s crying too.

He wraps his arms around Atti’s shoulders and pulls him in, trying his best to protect what little else he can of his son. Atti grips him by the back of his shirt, sniffling and laughing and crying into his shirt for the second time that night. Neither of them can remember the last time they hugged like this.

After they’ve gotten over the crying part, it feels like Eddie’s breathing into a new pair of lungs. 

“You still awake down there?” Eddie asks the quiet bedroom air when Atti won’t move his arms from around his chest.

“No,” is his son’s muffled reply.

Eddie laughs and kisses the top of his head. They stay quiet for a few more minutes, and it seems like the night itself is louder than the two of them.

“Can’t believe you were scared to be my _dad_.” Atti mutters eventually, but the heat has drained from his voice. It makes Eddie’s heart twist anyway. 

“Yeah, I know. Better than whatever theory you were supporting, anyway. My _‘divorced bachelor lifestyle’_?”

Atti groans and pulls away, leaving Eddie to laugh to himself. He rubs at his face, smiling beneath his hands.

“I don’t know what kind of life you think I’m living in my fucking _condo_ , Atti.”

Atti laughs, “I was paranoid!” He shakes his head and covers his eyes. “And I totally thought you had plans to move in with _Richie_ , anyway.”

Eddie’s laugh catches in his throat. “What?”

Atti shrugs nonchalantly, pocketing his hands. “Henley told me.”

Eddie blinks and apparently decides to play dumb. “Told you what?”

“That you guys are like,” Atti makes some strange hand motions that Eddie will have to decipher later, at a point where his brain has started up again. 

“Okay. This was _not_ how I planned on you finding out.”

Atti snorts comically and shrugs. “It’s cool. I don’t mind or anything, Dad.”

“Well I knew you wouldn’t _mind_ ,” Eddie responds, managing to sit down while his legs are still working, “I just wanted to actually _tell_ you. Maybe with him there.”

“It’s cool. I like him.” Atti kicks at the carpet and smiles. “He’s nice. And funny, but only sometimes.”

Eddie smiles fondly. “He’s a pain is what he is.”

Atti wiggles his shoulders and grins as he sits down next to his father. “Do you love him?”

“Atti-”

“No more lying to me.”

“Okay, not fair.” Eddie wrinkles his nose down at him and Atti just laughs it off.

“Do you?”

Eddie rolls his eyes all the way up to the ceiling. “Yeah.”

Atti hums, clearly satisfied, and kicks his feet mindlessly.

A thought comes to Eddie and he looks down at him. “You know I would never choose him over you though, right?”

Atti frowns. “I don’t want you to choose-”

“You’re my top priority, Atticus. Nothing’s coming in between that. I love you.”

Atti blinks, and smiles as he curls up against Eddie’s side. “I love you too, Dad.”

Eddie combs through his hair until his breaths start to grow slower and heavier. The night becomes still and humid and quiet. 

Just before he falls asleep, Atti points a tired hand towards the window. “Look.”

Eddie looks over his shoulder.

“Firefly.”

On the other side of the glass, a firefly’s yellow light pulses rhythmically in the thick ocean of the night. Eddie plans on saying something, but Atti’s already asleep, head tucked against Eddie’s shoulder and neck.

Eddie watches it with tired eyes until it opens its wings and flies silently off into the night.

**Los Angeles, 2012**

It is half past one in the morning when Henley’s father comes home drunk.

It’s not like she hasn’t seen him drunk before; Richie’s had an affinity for alcohol since before his daughter was born. His own mother had her fondness for wine and fancy liquor, and unsurprisingly, she ended up passing it on to her son.

And so, after fumbling to fit the key into the door, her father comes stumbling home. 

She’s sitting on the floor of the dark living room, drinking soda and watching one of her dad’s old VHS tapes. Tonight is John Carpenter’s _The Thing_ , one of her favorites. She looks up when her father comes in, but then turns back to the icy light of the television set when she sees him teeter drunkenly into the room.

“Hello, honeybee.” He slurs, putting a hand on his knee to reach down and pet her head. She doesn’t look away from the screen.

“Hi, daddy.”

“What are we watching tonight?”

“ _The Thing_ ,” she tells him as she sips more soda, “how was the bar?”

He huffs and stands up straight. “Loud and crowded. Much better to be home with my favorite girl.”

She tilts her head to look up at him. “I’m glad you’re home too, daddy.”

He grins down at her and scratches at her head again before leaving the room in the direction of the kitchen. She goes back to focusing on the television.

A minute later, he comes into the living room again and sits down next to her. He has a glass of bourbon in his hand, and he smells like cigarettes and the bar. She glances at him out of the corner of her eye, and then zoned back in on the movie. The doctor just got his arms chomped off, and Henley watches as his wax bones and jello filled arms splinter open. The blood looks too bright, much too cherry red to be real. She sips on her soda calmly as Kurt Russel breaks out his flamethrower.

“Are you sure you should be watching this?” Richie mumbles into his glass. The ice in the glass clatters noisily. 

“I’ve seen it before.”

He hums thoughtfully and downs the rest of his drink. “It’s past your bedtime, honeybee.”

Henley turns to look at him. “I was waiting up for you.” She waits up for him to make sure he doesn’t crash his car on the way home or pass out on the porch. She waits up because she can’t sleep when she worries like this.

He smiles and tilts his head. “You don’t have to wait up for me, hon. It’s so late, you should get to bed.”

But it isn’t her fault he only comes home past her bedtime these days. 

“Okay,” she says while she stands. Richie struggles to stand while she throws out her soda can and runs away towards her room, leaving the television set on. Maybe he can figure out how to turn it off on his own. 

She pulls on her pajamas hastily as she hears his footsteps trudge loudly and slowly down the hall. She flicks off the light, climbs under the covers and pulls them up to her cheeks. Then, she waits, her eyes trained on the door. She hears him go to his room, diagonal from hers, and hears the familiar sound of drawers opening and closing. The cicadas him outside the screen of her window, and warm summer air filters in.

She hears footsteps towards her room and closes her eyes preemptively, hoping he’ll think she’s asleep and just leave her be. She doesn’t want to deal with him right now. Not with his drunken voice or his wobbly steps. She just wants to go to sleep or drown herself in a movie. Maybe she’ll turn the television back on when he’s in bed.

But the steps do not stop outside her door, they go past it, and continue down the hall. Henley opens her eyes and squints at the sliver of the light at the bottom of the door. She waits. The bathroom door shuts - she can tell by the squeaking hinges. Then, silence.

The next noise is one she’s heard before - although usually only on bad, bad days when her father drinks himself to sleep. She hears the sound of her father, hunched over the toilet bowl, vomiting up every ounce of alcohol he drank that evening.

Furiously, she grabs her pillow and brings it down onto her face so she can scream into it without being heard. If she’s loud enough, she can’t hear him, so that’s exactly what she does. When she lifts her face out of the pillow, her eyes wet with frustrated tears, the house is quiet again. No more vomiting.

She hears the toilet flush and hugs the pillow to her scrawny chest. The night is still and almost noiseless. She should get up and go check on him, to make sure he isn’t choking on puke, but she’s bitter and doesn’t want to. She just wants to sleep and not have to worry about her father for once.

But a few minutes later, after staring angrily at her door and listening to nothing but silence, she gets up. She opens her door, and when nothing happens, she steps out into the hall. The bathroom door is closed and the tile is cold on her bare feet. Her steps patter gently as she crosses the hall to the door. She knocks hesitantly, and gets no response.

She shouldn’t be doing this. She’s supposed to be the kid here, not him. He isn’t supposed to be coming home past her bedtime and letting her watch bloody movies - even if she likes them. He shouldn’t get drunk when he’s had a bad day. And he shouldn’t be worrying his daughter like this.

But he does make good omelets. And he makes her laugh with his jokes and he braids her hair. He hangs her drawings up on the fridge and shows them to his friends. He lets her sleep with him in his bed when movies scare her, and he puts colorful band-aids on her knees when she scrapes them. He makes her lunch for school and helps her with homework. And he tells good bedtime stories. And he loves her very much.

And she loves him right back.

So she opens the door and finds him laying on the bathroom floor, in an old, faded shirt and his boxers. His face is pale, pressed to the cool tile floor. He still has his glasses on. 

And wordlessly, she runs back to her room and grabs the pillows and blanket from her bed. Then, she runs back into the bathroom, cargo clutched in her arms. Henley takes his glasses off and places them on the counter. She lifts his head and shoves the pillow under, and he barely makes a sound. He’s pretty far gone. After laying down on the hard tile with her own pillow and throwing the blanket over both of them, Henley doesn’t have to worry anymore. 

Slowly, she falls asleep.

When Richie comes back downstairs, it’s unusually quiet. It’s so quiet he thinks Bev and Ben may have lost Henley or maybe duct taped her mouth shut. Both plausible situations. He wouldn’t exactly blame them.

Bev looks up and smiles when he comes in. Ben’s next to her on the couch, and he picks his head up off her shoulder when he notices Richie there. Like he has anything to hide.

“Where’s Henley?”

Bev raises a finger to her lips and then points to the spot on the couch next to her. Richie steps closer and looks down. Henley’s on the couch, her head in Bev’s lap, completely asleep. Her arms are crushed under her head in a way that’s going to make her bones ache when she gets up.

“Holy shit,” he whispers and the two of them laugh, “how did you get her to sleep?”

Ben smiles, his arm around Bev’s shoulders. “Bev made her watch _10 Things I Hate about You_.” He laughs quietly as Bev points to her discarded earbuds and phone on the coffee table.

“Ah, rom-coms.” Richie smirks. “Of course. Those put her right to sleep.”

Bev laughs and brushes the hair out of Henley’s face. “She’s _darling_ , Richie.”

Richie grunts, but fondness blooms in his chest. “Who? Her? Nuh-uh, Bev.”

“She must’ve been a pretty cute toddler.” Ben hums, ignoring Richie as he heads over to the bar.

“The cutest.” Bev coos, laughing as she looks at Ben. Richie squints at the two of them and raises an eyebrow as he ponders a bottle of bourbon.

“Look out, Ben. Someone’s got baby fever.” Richie whistles as he twists off the cap and sniffs curiously.

Ben goes red as usual and Bev just rolls her eyes. “Beep beep, Richie.”

“Seriously though, adopt her if y’all really want. She loves you both enough.” He mumbles as he puts the bourbon back on the shelf. He’s tired anyway and needs a shower.

“Mm, we love her too. But you’d miss her too much.”

Richie turns over his shoulder to look at Bev and she smiles back at him. Henley twitches on the sofa.

“Yeah. You’re right.”

Ben checks his watch and breathes in sharply. “We should get to bed.”

Richie blinks as he remembers something Ben had told him earlier that day. “Shit, when do you guys fly out tomorrow?” 

Bev sighs, looking a little sad. “Flight’s at three.”

“What about you?” Ben asks as he stands and cracks his back.

“Haven’t even booked it yet.” Richie says, then laughs. “Manager’s pissed at me.”

“Yeah,” Bev murmurs as she carefully removes Henley’s head from her lap. “After being back here after all those years, I kinda forgot that other life existed.”

Right. The other life with the husband that isn’t Ben and the friends who aren’t the Losers. He glances at the bourbon on the counter again. Soon, he will have to drag himself and his daughter back to LA; back to the life that doesn’t include Eddie or his son.  
_Yet._

He ignores the liquor and turns back to his friends.

“It’s dead.” Ben says firmly, like he can read Richie’s mind. “We’re not forgetting ever again.”

Richie grins. “Oh, I’ll make sure of it. You’ll be hearing from me every damn day.”

Bev groans through a laugh as she starts to head towards the stairs.

“Seriously, prepare for all of my letters and postcards, you two. Complete with messenger pigeons and everything. You’ll never live in peace again!”

“Goodnight, Richie.” Bev says pointedly as Ben slings an arm around her shoulders. Richie figures that must be code for _‘shut up Richie so we can go upstairs and bang’_ so he dismisses them with a couple of blown kisses.

He waits until he hears the doors upstairs shut before he decides to wake Henley. Sitting down on the couch next to her, he runs his fingers through her hair until she stirs. 

“Hey there, honeybee.” He mumbles when she peers blearily up at him. The nickname is only reserved for when she’s crying or sick or he’s drunk, but Richie’s feeling generous tonight.

Feebly, she sits up and rubs at her eyes beneath her glasses. “Where’s everybody?”

“In bed, kid. C’mon, I’m tired.”

She blinks rapidly, shakes her head and stares at him. “Where’s Atti?”

Richie smiles. “He’s with his Dad now.”

“Oh,” she says, narrowing her eyes like it’ll help her think. “Is he okay?”

“He’ll be okay.”

She pauses then asks slowly, “Will they both be okay?”

Richie nods without asking what she means. “They’ll be fine.” He may not know much, but if there’s one thing he’s learned these past couple weeks. 

“Love like that ain’t fragile.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we’re in the home stretch now boys. next ones the big one :)


	7. the fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _i’m ready for the fall,_   
>  _i’m ready for everything that i believe in to drift away._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hoooooooo boy did NOT mean to take so long with this one. WOW
> 
> really hope y’all like this one, cause if not that sucks lmfao

Once upon a time, there was a boy who lived with his father and mother. Though he’d never admit it ever, the boy loved his father much more than he loved his mother. His father made him laugh and bandaged his scraped knees and didn’t often scold him like his mother did. His father let him sit on his lap while he was working, only if the boy promised to be quiet. His father was like all of the handsome princes and noble kings in the books the boy read.

His mother, though not vile or black of heart like the witches and mistresses in his fairytale books, was not so kind nor so patient. She was evil in her own way; in a way that could not be easily spotted. She scolded him when he played outside longer than she liked, and made him afraid of what the outside world held. She showed him what happened outside their home and showed him the murder and rape and hate it held. She promised that as long as he stayed by her side, he would never be scorched by the world’s evil grip.

“Stay with me, and I’ll keep you safe, dear.” She tells him one day as he watches her apply makeup through her big, clean vanity. If princes looked like his father, he thinks princesses must look like his mother. 

“The world out there is dirty and mean, honey, but with me, I’ll make sure you’re never in danger.”

He can’t sit in her lap because otherwise, she couldn’t put on her makeup. So he just watches her through the mirror, and when she catches his eye, she looks at him seriously

“ _Promise_ you’ll stay with me? And let me keep you safe?”

“Yes, Momma.” He tells her. Her eyes gleam and she kisses his cheek. 

So he spends his days reading about brave people in the books they bought him, mooning over strong, charismatic heroes who got to explore a whole world of things he’d never get to see. He buried his nose in a book until he was thirteen, trying feverishly to find himself within those pages. 

And then, when his father leaves him for a place Atti knows nothing about, Atti takes his nose out of his books and follows him. Much to her dismay, Atti’s mother learns that she can no longer keep her son obedient and quiet. He isn’t the boy she raised, and there is little she can do to bring that boy back. 

But she’s going to get that boy back, if it’s the very last thing she does.

So on the second week since her ex-husband disappeared, and on the seventh day since her son hightailed it to Maine on a dirty city bus, Myra books a plane ticket.

“Why are we building this again?” Atti asks as he lugs a hefty sized rock out of the crystal clear water. They’re in the creak by a place Bill told them is called the _barrens_ , in a smaller river that runs out of the Kenduskeag. The summer air is tolerably warm, but Atti’s still sweating as he carries the rock over to where Henley is. They’re trying to build a dam; God knows why. It was one of Henley’s impulsive, crazy ideas.

“I don’t know, man, it was your idea anyway.” She says absently, trying to dig out a rock by the shore with her bare hands.

“What?” He wipes his brow with the back of his hand, “No it wasn’t.”

“Uh, yeah it was,” she looks over her shoulder at him, “you were all like _‘let’s build a dam, it’ll be fun’._ ”

Atti squints at her, trying to decipher if she’s serious or not. “I literally did not say that.”

She switches topics completely, “I bet all the kids that went missing were dumped in this river.”

“Ew,” He gags and rolls his eyes. “That’s so gross, shut up.”

She shrugs and jimmies the rock a little bit. “Bet it’s true.”

“Well, I don’t see any bodies.” He picks up another rock and carries it over to the line they’re making underwater.

“That’s ‘cause- the water decomposes all the bodies real fast.” She breathes and then tugs futilely at the rock with mud-slick hands. Half of it is still buried in dirt. “Motherfucker.”

He rolls his eyes at the back of her head. “It’s too big to dig out. Just find another one.”

“No,” she sighs stubbornly, “I want _this_ rock.”

“Oh my God, why? There’s like, a million other rocks.”

“I like _this one_.” She whines at him over her shoulder. “Come help me.”

Atti groans dramatically, but trudges on bare feet through the current to help her. “You have to get more of it out. There’s still half of it left in the mud.”

“Then _help_.” 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m on my way.” He mutters as he crouches on the other side of the rock. She begins to carve out more dirt with her fingers, while he picks up a flat rock to do the dirty work. He doesn’t feel like picking mud out from underneath his fingernails later. They dig in silence for a little bit before she opens her mouth, and seems to think really hard before she speaks.

“Do you think we’ll still be friends if our dads don’t get together?”

He stops, and stares hard into the mud before he looks up at her. She’s not looking at him, instead, religiously glaring into the ground, pushing mud around lazily with her hands.

“Yeah. Of course.”

She glances up at him. “You’re just saying that.”

“No, I’m not.” He puts down his makeshift trowel and puts his hands on his knees. “Of course we’ll still be friends.”

“But how will we ever see each other?” Henley looks so sad, and it makes Atti hesitate. He hasn’t seen her sad yet. “You’ll be in New York, and I’ll be in LA.”

“Well, we can text.”

She sighs heavily, defeated. “That’s different.”

He frowns at her, now frustrated. “Well, whatever. We’ll make it work.”

She stays quiet, eyes glazed over as she digs. He watches her cautiously; he doesn’t like it when she’s quiet like this. “What’s wrong?”

She shrugs and remains silent. “We’re leaving soon.”

Atti inhales sharply and drops his gaze. He did _know_ \- theoretically - that they would have to leave at one point. His father’s wound has healed enough for him to travel, and he has to return to work at _some_ point. They can’t just keep prancing about Maine, swimming like fish in shimmering quarries and flouncing through warm summer forests. They have to go home; to their actual home.

He nods slowly. “Yeah. We have to leave soon too.”

She keeps digging, but her efforts are barely hiding the fear in her face. “I wish we could stay.”

“Me too.” He murmurs, watching a fat black beetle crawl across the tip of his shoe. A loon hoots solemnly from somewhere downstream.

“I don’t have a lot of friends back home, believe it or not.” Henley laughs dryly, eyes still trained into the mud, anywhere but near Atti.

“Wow, I don’t believe that for a second.” Atti laughs, trying to lighten the air around them but it doesn’t work as well as he hopes.

“Yeah, well. Believe it.” 

Atti tries to think of something a little nicer and a little more genuine to say, but before he can, she continues. “I’m loud and I talk too much and I’m annoying-”

“Dude, everyone’s annoying-”

“Just let me say something for a second, Atti, I’m trying to be sentimental.” She snaps at him and he closes his mouth. She breathes in, and continues, “But I think - and don’t laugh at me or I’ll kill you - but I think… you’re the only actual friend I’ve ever really _had_.”

A bird takes off from the branch of a huge oak tree, its wings beating fervently against the summer air. The river water bubbles and cascades over smooth, worn rocks. The air hums with the sound dragonfly wings, swooping and dipping down above the crystal clear water. Atti smiles, his cheeks feeling warm.

“I told you not to laugh at me, you prick!”

“I’m not laughing,” Atti urges, but now he is laughing, but for a whole different reason than Henley probably fears. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to.”

“You’re such a _dick_.” Henley grumbles, actually sounding a little hurt. “No one’s ever spent this much time with me before, and now you’re laughing at me.”

“Hey, come on,” he begs when she stands up, “I wasn’t laughing at you. Henley, I think it’s sweet.”

“It’s not _sweet_ ,” she hisses, her face red from embarrassment rather than the heat, “it’s fucking embarrassing.”

“Come on, dude. Do you think I have loads of friends too?” Atti holds his arms out and gestures to himself. To himself, the kid that came out as trans and sent a tidal wave through his entire private school, who gets nervous when people look at him too long or when teachers call on him to answer a question. Who sits alone at lunch everyday, because for so long, he thought he liked being alone.

Henley frowns at him. “I feel like you do.”

Atti snorts. “Dude, shut up, I’m a loser.”

Henley rolls her eyes, “No, _I’m_ a loser. You’re attractive and funny and smart. I have a gap between my teeth and glasses and basically flunked my last math class.”

“Aww, you think I’m attractive?” Atti presses his hands to his cheeks and blinks up at her, trying to get her to stop being such a downer.

“I said I was gay, not blind, Atti.” She wrinkles her nose at him and tilts her chin upwards.

“Whatever. I’m still a loser.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Uh, _yeah_ , I am.”

“Nope.”

“Yup.” He nods, and then kicks some water her way with his foot. She recoils slightly, and bites back a smile.

“You’re not a loser.” She snaps and leans down to splash him with her hand. He jumps away, laughing, and splashes her back when he gets his bearings.

And then okay, maybe they’re not really arguing anymore. They’re mostly shoving and wrestling in some stream that, a couple weeks ago, Atti would have rather died than be in. But no, he’s not even thinking about germs or mud or bacteria, he’s thinking about ways to make Henley laugh and smile. He’s thinking about ways to make her happy again, because he’s spent all of his life in sorrow, and he isn’t interested in being sad for one second longer.

But of course, it goes too far and Henley loses her footing, and she falls onto her ass into the river. He gasps, shocked still. She gapes up at him like a fish, looking between her soiled clothes and Atti, standing clean and mostly dry above her. 

“You asshole!”

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to-”

But then Henley grabs his wrists with muddy hands and tugs him down into the water with her. He lands on his knees on the rocks next to her, water splashing up and hitting him in the stomach and face. They stare at each other in shock for a second, before laughter is bubbling up in their chests and they’re in cackling hysterics under a flame blue sky.

And then, when their voices finally begin to quiet, Henley sits up on her knees and hugs Atti close to her. Atti gives in, his head falling to her shoulder, and hugs her back. It’s a hug that’s wet with creek water and warm with the sun’s loving touch, and the birds chirp in the trees around them. They’re both sitting there, holding each other closer than they’ve ever done before, two pairs of hands scrunched white-knuckled into soaked soft fabric, hair hanging dark, wet swirls around their smiling faces. 

“Promise we’ll always be friends?” She whispers, a wet plea into the fabric of Atti’s shirt.

“Promise.” He whispers, meaning it more than he’s ever meant any promise he’s ever made.

The birds sing and the cicadas hum and time does not stop when Atticus Kaspbrak’s mother steps off her flight into Bangor, Maine

“Shouldn’t they be back by now?”

Richie looks up at Eddie, perched near the window looking at the storm clouds gathering on the crest of the horizon. The wind’s getting stronger by the minute, so the rain should arrive in less than half an hour. 

Richie stretches his legs across the coffee table, ignoring Bill when he thumps his arm for it, “Eds, they’re fine, I promise. Come sit.”

Eddie barely spares a glance over his shoulder to the space on the couch Richie is patting, and turns back to the window. Richie huffs a sigh and entertains the idea of calling Henley. It’s been a couple hours since she dragged Atti out into the summer morning light, and they said they’d be back before the rain came. He knows they’re safe now - they made damn sure of it by killing that clown - but there are still the regular, non-demonic-alien horrors of the world. Real life horrors that exist everyday, like kidnappers and pedos and regular schoolyard bullies.

Okay, maybe he should call Henley.

“Eddie, honey, they’re strong kids, they’ll probably be back any second.” Bev says, motioning for Eddie to come sit. He doesn’t budge.

“It’s gonna rain soon.”

“They’ll be back before that.”

“Atti doesn’t have his phone on him.”

“He left it here?” Mike asks, the only one looking at least a little worried, bless him.

“Destroyed it.” Richie clarifies quietly, making a slashing motion across his throat when Bill looks like he might ask about it. Bill sees the motion, nods and closes his mouth quickly. 

Eddie leaves the window with a swift turn and crosses the parlor with intent. Richie makes a grab towards him but Eddie steps out of the way.

“I should start packing,” he mutters and pats Richie’s shoulder absently. As he silently heads up the stairs, the others look back to him.

“What?” 

Bev makes that face at him that she always used to make when he talked about girls. The face that’s always seen right through his bullshit. Bill clears his throat.

“Yeah, I know, I’m going.” He sighs.

He finds Eddie up in his room, folding clothes with a feverish intensity and packing them into one of his suitcases. Richie plants his forearm in the doorway and tilts his head at him.

“Where’s the fire, Eds?”

Eddie shoots him a withering glare from under his brow, making Richie bite the inside of his cheek. Ultimately, he steps inside and closes the door behind him. Thunder rolls, low and heady in the distance.

“Okay. Tell me what’s wrong.”

Eddie sighs heartily, his hands flying up in the panic-induced move Richie knows very well by now. “Nothing. I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine,” Richie tells him softly, taking a few steps towards him, “do you want me to call Henley?”

“Ugh, no, it’s fine.” Eddie rubs his palms across his face and groans. “I’m just paranoid. I have no reason to be worried.”

Richie stands at his side and tucks his hands in his pockets. He’s not sure if Eddie wants to be touched at the moment. “They’re okay. We don’t have to worry anymore. It’s dead.”

“I know.” Eddie says, eyes closing. Richie reaches around and brushes his thumb across the bandage on his cheek. Eddie leans into his touch with a sigh, “I know. It’s fine, really.” 

Richie hums and pulls him closer, feeling like he could purr when Eddie leans into him. “That all you’re worried about?”

Eddie ducks his head and resumes folding and refilling his clothes.

“Eds.”

“I’m _fine_ , Richie.”

“Right,” Richie nods, “I can see you’re fine by the way you’ve angrily folded that shirt three times now.”

Eddie frowns at him, finally stopping the incessant movements of his hands. “Okay, no need to be a jackass about it.”

“Oh, baby, you know I’m always a jackass.” Richie leans forward and kisses the handsome, straight bridge of his nose. He can almost feel Eddie’s smile.

When he pulls back though, his eyes are a little sullen, the way they only look at each other when there’s a chance one of them’s about to die.

“I missed you.”

Richie smiles softly and takes one of Eddie’s hands. He’s so lucky he gets to hold these hands again, after all these years, after all that pain. “I missed you too. More than anything, Eds.”

Eddie breathes in sharply, like the words physically pain him. “Rich, what if we forget again?”

Richie shakes his head quickly, dismissing the thought as soon as he processes it. “We won’t. It’s dead.”

“But what if-”

“Shh, stop, we won’t.” Richie pulls Eddie nearer to him by his arms, like he can’t stand staying away for a second. 

Eddie puts his hands to Richie’s hips, and looks up at him with those dark doe eyes that always made his knees a little weak. “What if-”

“God, you and your hypotheticals, man.”

“I’m serious.” Eddie begs, and it makes Richie almost entertain the idea that they might forget again. “What if it wasn’t It that made us forget? What if it was Derry, what if it was being here?”

Richie shakes his head, “What, so you want to stay here forever?”

“God, no,” Eddie scoffs, “but- Richie. I know I have no reason to be scared anymore, but…now that it’s over, what do we do?”

Richie threads his fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck, and kneads the skin there gently. Eddie sighs into it and leans heavier against him. 

“Well, my plan is to get the fuck out of dodge. Preferably with you.”

Eddie’s eyes soften, “And then?”

“And then be there for you while you get custody of your kid. Y’know, help out if I can, however I can. Iron your shirts. Do your dishes.”

Eddie laughs, that smile and those dimples still practically blindingly pretty after all these years. “You know I’d never let you do that, you’d do it all wrong.”

“Yeah, I would.” Richie smiles fondly and then kisses him as tenderly as he can manage. Eddie hums into it and holds Richie’s face with both hands, rocking closer on his toes until their chests are pressed together. 

“And then?” Eddie whispers into his mouth, but Richie thinks his brain is soup. It takes him several seconds to come up with a response.

“And then,” he mutters into Eddie’s mouth, “this might sound a little forward but. Y’know, there’s plenty of risks to analyze in LA.”

Eddie’s mouth splits into a grin against his, until Richie’s only kissing the white tiles of his teeth. He laughs and pulls a Richie into him so hard they stumble a little bit. 

“Hell yeah, there is. I’ve seen how you fuckers drive out there.”

Richie laughs into another kiss and reaches down to palm up Eddie’s thigh. Eddie breathes heavily against his skin and pushes his glasses up his face to change their angle. Eddie wriggles a hand between them to force a hand up Richie’s shirt, fingers dancing up his side.

Richie flinches and laughs as his muscles flinch at the sensation. “Stop that. Tickles.”

Eddie shushes him and drags his fingers down with a purpose.

“You only love me for my body.” Richie tells him as they climb up and down each other, like there’s nothing else they should be doing.

“Well, it’s certainly not for your personality.” Eddie grumbles, voice low and gravelly, and Richie can feel it rumble in his chest. Richie manages a laugh before Eddie’s mouth is covering his own again. He hears rather than sees Eddie flick his glasses onto the bed, since he’s too busy kissing him breathless. Richie groans and moves his hand to Eddie’s ass, grabbing a palmful through his jeans. Eddie makes a throaty noise and smacks him lightly on the arm.

By the time they finally get on the bed, Richie’s glad his glasses are off or else they’d be fogging up by now. Eddie tilts his head back and the angle gets even better, with Eddie clutching at his collar and his shoulder like he might lose him. Richie grabs his thighs and kneads into them until Eddie hisses a laugh above him.

They’re just about to get Eddie’s shirt off when there’s a knock at the door. 

Eddie swears under his breath, pulls his shirt down and climbs off of Richie’s lap.

“Goddammit, c’mon.” Richie whines, managing to grab Eddie by the wrist when he stands.

“The kids might be back, knock it off.” Eddie tells him when Richie tries to pull him back. Richie huffs, and begins to search the comforter for his glasses.

But instead of their kids at the door, it’s Ben, with his hands in his pockets and a frazzled look on his face. He must notice Richie’s lack of glasses and the state his clothes are in, because he goes pink and winces.

“Truly awful timing, Haystack.”

Eddie shoots him a glare as he opens the door wide, “Ignore him. What’s up?”

“Well,” Ben huffs a laugh and rocks back and forth on his feet, “there’s someone here to see you, Eddie.”

“What?”

Richie puts on his glasses and squints at Ben through the lenses. Ben glances over his shoulder at the still open door and his shoulders heave with a sigh.

“I think Atti’s mom is here.”

They make it back to the Inn a few minutes after the rain starts to pour. They’re absolutely soaked with rain and river water, and thunder booms above them as they race down the slick sidewalks. Atti half-wishes he packed his umbrella, but honestly the rain feels nice. He’s always liked storms; liked how the clouds looked, dark and dangerous. His skin is slick and cold with piercing raindrops, and Henley keeps running ahead of him like the brat she is. He can feel the water in his socks by now. He’s never felt more alive than right now, speeding through the street while the rain pours down his back and chest and arms.

“Slow down!”

She stops at a crosswalk and whips around, the wet tendrils of her hair sticking to her face. “You speed up!”

He catches up to her, grinning and out of breath, “Sorry, I don’t want to slip and break my neck!”

She grins back at him, and pushes her glasses back up from where they’re slipping down her wet face. Lightning lights up the sky, and they both yelp and then burst into giggles.

“C’mon!” Henley yells over the rain when the crosswalk signal flashes on, and then she’s grabbing his wrist and slipping on the wet soles of her converse as they run into the street.

A car honks as they tear across the street to the Inn, but neither of them pay much attention. Atti pushes his slick hair out of his face, and thanks his past-self for deciding not to wear a white t-shirt today. Their shoes make loud, slapping sounds against the cement steps, so doused with rainwater that Atti slips and has to catch himself on the railing. He’s trembling, with the cold and and the racing of his heart. His muscles ache with a pleasant burn, like the kind he used to feel when he did ballet or played soccer during recess as a kid. 

They shove the front door open and stumble into the Inn on weak legs, laughing and panting. Henley shakes her head like a dog, sending water droplets flickering through the room.

“I’m freezing!” She whines, flailing her arms in a weak attempt to dry off. Her jaw is trembling so hard it looks like there’s a jackhammer inside her skull.

“Dude, I’m completely soaked!” He laughs and holds his arms out, watching the water drip onto the carpet below. He runs his icy fingers through his hair and shakes his head wildly. “Look,” he says as he begins to wring his shirt out onto the carpet, listening to the way it makes Henley laugh.

“Atti!”

He feels everything leave him at once. He’s never been punched, but he’s sure this is what it feels like - a sledgehammer right to the gut, propelling all the air and blood out of his body. He thinks his heart actually stops beating for at least five seconds. He glances up at Henley, but she’s looking away from him, at someone else. He thinks she might know it too, because her mouth is clamped shut and her shoulders have gone rigid.

Finally, he looks up. “Momma?”

She rushes over to him quick as she always does, gripping him by his sodden shoulders and tearing him away from Henley’s side. In an instant, he feels every ounce of that skin-tingling pleasantness he’s been feeling this past week drain from his body. He clams up and his heart starts to pound, like it always does around his mother.

“Honey, you’re freezing! Look at you, you’re completely soaked? What were you doing out in a storm like this? You know how weak your immune system is, you’ll catch your death of cold!”

He looks at her with wide eyes, his chest spasming. His inhaler is all the way in his backpack, too far to grab. He catches his father’s eyes over her shoulder and he looks exactly the way Atti’s feeling.

“Myra, he’s fine, please-”

She whips around to glare at him. “Not another _word_ , Eddie.”

Atti keeps looking at her, confused, feeling like he’s dreaming. “What- what are you doing here?”

She turns back to him, brushing the hair from his face and scrubbing at his wet cheeks. “I came to get you, of course. I wasn’t just going to let you stay here, all alone!”

“I’m not alone- Momma. You didn’t have to come here-”

“Oh yes, I did. You know I did. Who knows what could have happened to you?”

Eddie scrubs his hands across his face. “Myra, he’s been with me the whole time, please, he’s fine!”

Atti makes a move towards his dad, trying desperately to get to him, but Myra holds him back. “Eddie, look at him, he’s all bruised! Have you even been watching him? Of course he gets hurt under your care!”

“I’m not hurt.” Atti says, loud so she’ll hear him. “They’re bruises, Mom, I’m fine-”

“Your clothes are all muddy, and your legs are scraped to shreds! What on earth have you been doing?”

“We were just playing.” Henley says quietly, and Myra snaps her head in her direction. She looks her up and down, from her mismatched socks and unlaced, dirty sneakers, to the gap between her front teeth and her bug-eyes. Atti wishes she hadn’t said anything.

“Atticus, who is your… friend here?”

“I’m Henley. Henley Tozier.” She says before Atti can even open his mouth. She sticks out a hand with dirt under the fingernails, “Nice to meet you.”

Myra hums and doesn’t shake her hand, and instead sends a glare in Richie’s direction, where he’s standing awkwardly with the others. They all look like they want to be anywhere but here. Atti feels the same way. He wishes he were dead right about now.

Myra looks down at Henley and tilts her head. “Shame. Should’ve known you were _his_ girl.” 

“Mom!” Atti hisses at the same time Eddie yelps, “Myra!”

Henley’s hand recoils and she wipes it lamely on her t-shirt. She sends a look Atti’s way and then looks at the ground. Something like anger sparks low in his gut.

“That doesn’t matter, anyway, Atticus.” Myra says, shouldering her purse and turning her gaze back on him. “Pack your things. We’re leaving.”

“What?” Atti yelps, looking instantly to his father.

“You can’t leave!” Henley whines as Richie slides in to pull her away by her shoulders.

“The flight’s already booked, Atticus. Come on, we can’t miss it.” She steps away from him finally to nudge him towards the stairs. She looks at Eddie, “You’re lucky if you’ll ever see him again after this whole mess.”

Atti feels the fear in him begin to crack like an eggshell. Anger takes its place, hot and begging to be seen. 

“No!”

Myra blinks at him, startled. “No?”

Eddie looks at him, eyes wide and worried and afraid. Thunder rolls and the wind howls outside.

“No.” Atti says again, more controlled. “I’m- I don’t want to go.”

Myra grows more stern. “Atticus. Enough is enough, your little _vacation_ is over. Go pack your things.”

“No.” He blinks and sucks in a breath. “I’m not going with you.”

She purses her lips, “I’m afraid you don’t have a choice, dear. Go upstairs, now, please.”

He stands his ground. “I won’t.”

“Atticus, I am _done_ talking about this!”

His hands clench into fists, and the resolve in him begins to crumble. He’s never felt this brave before. “Well, I’m not!”

She scowls at him, her eyes confused and frustrated. He’s never disobeyed her before. 

“Mom. You- I want to be with Dad. I don’t want to go home with you.”

She tilts her head at him, clearly not understanding. “Atti. You’re not going home with your father. Trust me, I know what’s best for you, and-”

“I don’t think you do!” Atti rubs his hands along his shorts, trying desperately to keep the energy in him from exploding out. “Mom, you always say you do, but I don’t think-”

“I’ve heard enough!”

“No! Mom, just listen!”

“No, Atticus, you’re being ridiculous.” She kneels down and takes him by the shoulders. “I don’t know what’s best for you? I am your mother, Atticus, all I have ever done is work so hard and sacrifice so much to make you happy. No one could _ever_ love you more than I do.”

Atti looks at his father. He thinks about how his father always listened, and was always there when Atti needed him. They lost a lot of their relationship when he divorced Myra. But now, Atti feels like they’re closer than ever. He thinks about his father, who listens and cares and fixes things when they’re bad. He thinks about the lullabies he used to sing him when Atti couldn’t sleep, or how he always let Atti play outside when Mom wasn’t around. 

He thinks about the fireflies.

Myra grabs him by his cheek and makes him look back at her. “Are you listening to me? Atti, who could ever love you more than I?”

Atti blinks, and he suddenly understands. “Dad does.”

Myra blinks at him. Eddie starts to smile.

Atti takes her hands in his and knows with every part of him that this will be the last time he holds these hands. “Mom… the way you treat me-... that’s not love. Not really.”

She gapes at him, her hands recoiling from his face like he’s some sick creature, like she could possibly catch whatever contagion he’s infected with. “How could you possibly say something like that?”

He steps back, “Well, to be honest Mom, you haven’t given me any reason to believe otherwise.”

Henley whistles and Richie frantically claps a hand over her mouth. 

“Atticus,” she hisses, voice low and quiet, “after everything I’ve done for you-”

“What have you done for me?” He cries, and thunder booms above them. The rain hits the window panes harder, and lightning digs a white-hot scar into the sky, sending icy light slanting across Atti’s face. The light makes his shadow seem huge.

“Mom, I spent all of my childhood in _fear_ because of you. I could never play outside, I could never make friends, I couldn’t even breathe without that- that stupid inhaler!”

“I was making sure you were healthy. You were _safe_ , Atticus.”

“I was _dying!_ I was dying and Dad was dying too! You were killing us, Mom! Dad lost twenty years of his life to you! I lost my entire _childhood_! Neither of us can get _any_ of that time back. Ever!”

He doesn’t know what his father went through in the years before Atti was born. But he does remember him telling Atti about how he never had a father of his own, how that fact scared him so much that he himself was hesitant to become a father. He knows his father lived in hiding for years for his son, all for _Atti._ And those years can never be made up.

She looks at him, and for the first time in his life, he thinks he sees fear in her eyes. Actual fear; fear that she’s about to lose the one thing in her life she can control. Atti doesn’t feel any remorse, and he can’t decide if that’s good or bad. The rain falls harder.

“I can’t stay with you anymore.”

Thunder booms. It’s like a dam breaking. He can’t even look at her anymore, not after the years of anger, guilt, fear, and sadness she’s saddled him with. He turns his eyes to the ground, to his fists clenched at his sides.

“What on _Earth_ are you saying?”

He looks up at her, voice firm beyond his years when he says, “I want Dad to have full custody of me.”

Tires screech outside. Everything is so loud; he can’t tell if the humming in his ears is the rush of his blood or the fall of the rain.

She scoffs, and then laughs at his face, “Atticus, that’s ridiculous. Are you even hearing yourself?”

“It’s not ridiculous, Mom. It’s what I want. It’s what’s best for me, you always say you want what’s best for me!”

“But Atti, this is- no, I’m your mother! You need me! You’ll always need me!”

He shakes his head. “I just need to be loved. In the real way. Dad can give that to me.”

“But you’re my child! You’re my little boy, and you’re going to leave me?” She presses a hand to her heaving chest. “How could you do this to me?”

“Mom.” He says firmly because he doesn’t do that anymore. She can’t trick him anymore. He isn’t the same boy that boarded the New York bus in search of his missing father. That boy died the second he jumped into the quarry and left his old life behind.

“I’ve been happier here, in this one week, with these people, than I have been in my entire life!” He looks back at Henley and she grins at him, her eyes wet. Bill’s smiling too, because Atti finally gets it; happy endings never come easy.

He turns back to his mother, “And isn’t that sad? Doesn’t that make you sad? The time I was happiest was when I was away from you.”

She shakes her head at him. “No, Atticus.”

“It’s true.” He nods, feeling a little sorry for her. “I thought being away from you would kill me, but I think I’m living- _actually_ living for the first time. And it feels great.”

“So what,” she shrugs, scowling at him, “you’re just going to leave me? You’re going to leave me alone? Just because you like it here, in Maine? With these people I’ve never even met?”

“It’s not just that,” he sighs, shaking his head, “I’ve spent my entire life feeling _so_ small, Mom. I’m just so sick of it, can’t you understand that?”

Myra doesn’t respond for once. She looks down at him and then finally sighs, sounding almost sad, like she’s given up. “No. You’re the only child I’ve ever had. And I never understood you, not one little bit.”

Atti looks down at his feet, at the wet spot he’s made on the carpet. “I know.”

Neither of them speak, and the silence is almost unbearable. Part of him wishes she could’ve had the child that she wanted; the child who she could control and coddle all she wanted. But she didn’t give birth to that child. She gave birth to a Kaspbrak; a stubborn, dangerous, clever Kaspbrak who wasn’t what she ever dreamed of wanting. But she has to deal with it now, because that’s what parents are supposed to do.

“I’m going home with Dad tomorrow. Whether you like it or not. Then when we’re back home-... we can talk about this. But my mind is made up.”

Myra looks at her son, and then at her ex-husband. The room is silent except for the rain outside. Atti unclenches his hands and looks at his palms, at the swirling ripples of his fingerprints.

“Please go.”

The seconds drag on before the two of them, like dominoes falling, one into the next into the next and so on. Atti feels like he’s been gutted, laid open for everyone to see and gawk at. But it doesn’t feel vulnerable; it feels like a revelation. 

And then, Myra does what might just be the kindest thing she’s ever done for her son, and she leaves. She touches his cheek faintly, for the very last time, and leaves. Atti doesn’t think he breathes until the door closes. Even then, his breaths are labored and slow.

Once upon a time, in the horrid little town of Derry, Maine, there was a boy who learned that everything he would ever need was inside him. He learned that the evil he fought wasn’t that of witches or spells, but it was that stony cold darkness that lived inside some people. He learned that love isn’t a fragile thing, and that life shouldn’t be spent behind a closed door. He learned that family isn’t just blood, and that there’s no need to fear what comes next. He learned that no one ever walks alone, not really.

Outside, the rain begins to slow. 

Silently, Eddie steps forward and takes his son by the shoulders. He pulls him into the warmth of his arms and combs the wet hair back from his face. Atti holds him by his shirt, and pushes his face into his chest.

“How do you feel?” Eddie asks him, so quiet and gentle that Atti can hardly hear it over his thumping heart. 

Atti doesn’t quite know how he feels, but he knows it’s good. He doesn’t know what comes after this, or how long the custody battle will take. He doesn’t know if Henley and him will remain friends. He doesn’t know if Richie and his father will stay together. He doesn’t know if the people he met will stay in his life, or if he won’t see them again after today. 

But for once, the unknown doesn’t scare him. He’s ready for the change because _he’s_ changed. He’s ready for whatever comes next because he knows no matter what, he won’t be alone. He doesn’t know what happens now, but he thinks that’s a good thing, because nothing good ever came from some big plan anyhow. Life is one big rollercoaster, and sometimes you go off the tracks, you ride the car alone, or the tracks disappear beneath you, without warning. He’s ready to welcome the unknown with open, loving arms. 

Atti begins to smile.

“Big.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wash your fucking hands and sanitize your phones you clowns
> 
> and also leave comments and kudos pls :•


	8. we all float on alright

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _and we’ll all float on okay_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG OMG IM ACTUALLY SO SORRY HAHA

Richie wakes up in his Los Angeles bed in the early hours of the morning. The crickets and peeper frogs outside their screen window sing softly into the cool night air, and the analog clock glows a jarring red on their nightstand. Richie shifts on the mattress, his stubbled cheek scraping silently across the fabric of his pillows. Sighing, he closes his eyes and settles back down again.

Eddie’s hand curls delicately around his bicep, tugging at his arm sleepily. Richie smiles and reaches up with his other hand to entwine with Eddie’s.

“Your hands are cold.” He mutters, rubbing Eddie’s knuckles with his thumb. Eddie doesn’t respond, but he squeezes Richie’s hand and presses flush against his back. 

Richie pulls Eddie’s hand up to his mouth and kisses the back of it before resting it on the slight swell f his stomach. Through his sleepy haze, he can register a faint taste on his lips. Something earthy and metallic that deep down, he knows much too well.

His eyes snap open, suddenly wide awake. Something warm and wet starts to spread against his back, making his shirt stick to his skin. The bedsheets are suddenly much too warm around him, searing hot against his body. The crickets grow louder outside, droning into an incessant cacophony of noise.

“Eds?” He sits up, still holding Eddie’s hand, and twists around to look down at him. Eddie’s hand is sticky in his grip. In the dark of the night, Richie can see his chest is drenched in blood, his shirt completely soaked through. Blood coats his mouth and chin, and his eyes are half closed, dull and lifeless. The crickets swell into a blaring hum. The air grows impossibly hotter, and it smells of rot, rank and sick and dirty.

Screaming, Richie wakes up. 

His bed is empty and cold, and the room is dark. He feels feverish and sweaty, and his heart is setting a breakneck pace in his chest. Snow falls silently outside the window; the curtains are half drawn. The clock ticks almost silently.

**New York, December, 2018**

Richie Tozier scrubs a hand across his face and sighs shakily into his palms. The clock on the nightstand says it’s a little past four in the morning. He can’t decide if that’s considered too early to have a drink. There’s a bottle of whisky in the mini fridge that one of the cameramen got him, but he knows he shouldn’t touch it. Not alone, not when he’s feeling like this.

Tossing his legs over the side of the bed, he discards the sweaty sheets trying to stick to his skin and glances towards his phone. 

He shouldn’t call him. It’s way too late in LA. He’ll be annoyed at being woken up just because Richie had a bad dream.

But eventually, the need to hear Eddie’s voice - in all of its annoyed, irritated glory - won. Richie takes a deep breath and grabs his phone off the nightstand. 

It takes five rings for Eddie to pick up.

“Hey.” Richie breathes, his heartbeat already starting to slow even though Eddie hasn’t spoken yet.

“Hey,” he grumbles, voice groggy, “what the fuck? What time is it there?”

“Late.” Richie sighs, his fingers pulling fruitlessly at the bedsheets, needing anything to pick at. “How are you?”

“Did you really call me this late to ask how I was doing?” Eddie groans, no doubt pinching his nose like he always does when he’s annoyed. 

“No, I actually meant to call your mom but it seems-”

“Richie.”

“Sorry.” 

There’s a pause from the other line, and Richie can hear the faint hum of the air conditioner they keep in their bedroom window. “You okay?”

Richie blinks up at the ceiling. Oh, how to answer that question. “Yeah. Just-... bad dreams again. Y’know.”

He hears Eddie inhale sharply, and some rustling of the blankets. “They’re just dreams.”

“I know,” Richie sighs, and rubs the corners of his eyes, “I know they’re not real. But- but they feel so _real_ sometimes, Eds. Even after a couple years.”

“Yeah. I know.”

Richie lays back down and puts his hand over his heart. “I always have more of them when I’m away from you.”

“Damn. Almost like you’re in love with me or something.” Eddie hisses, completely shooting down Richie’s gooey words in a way that’s always infinitely more romantic.

Richie snorts a laugh, and then says,with all of his heart, “I miss you.”

He thinks Eddie’s smiling. He hopes he is. “I miss you too.”

“Man, fuck comedy. If it means more of this shit, forget it. I’ll quit and be a janitor or something.”

“You’re not gonna quit, you big baby, you’ll be home tomorrow.”

“And that’s a whole day away.”

“Well, it would go faster if you went to sleep, you know.”

“Yeah. But then I wouldn’t get to listen to you.”

Eddie’s definitely smiling. Richie can hear it in his voice when he says, “Tell me how the shoot went.”

Richie shrugs as he rolls onto his back. “Good. People laughed. So.”

“Well, thank God. I’d be really worried about the Netflix deal if they didn’t.”

Richie laughs, because Eddie’s always so good at doing this. He’s always been really good at calming Richie down, even back when he was running from Bowers rather than some stupid nightmare. 

“Sorry I didn’t call before bed. Some of the crew and I went out for drinks afterwards and I got back kinda late.”

“Oh, that’s okay. I understand your social life must be absolutely booming, mister comeback special.”

“Man, what’s with you and my Netflix deal lately?” Richie half-jokes, “I feel like you’re just after my money.”

Eddie laughs back, actually sounding a bit hurt, “Oh, please, it’s not that. I’m proud of you.”

Richie blinks, surprised, and feels his heart swell. He didn’t know love was supposed to feel like this. “Oh.”

“You know I’m proud of you, dumbass. I love you.”

Eddie catches him off guard with his sincerity sometimes. Eddie’s never done anything half-assed - whether it’s work or exercise or sex or just telling Richie how much he loves him - all of it is done with so much dedication.

“I love you too, Eddie.” Richie gets back underneath the covers and holds the phone to his ear. “Now. Tell me about your day. Put me to sleep.”

He can practically hear Eddie’s eye-roll over the phone. “Wow, rude. See if I’ll kiss you for that when you get home. We didn’t do much today anyway, watched The Shining over dinner tonight.”

“Oh, lovely. Did Henley pause it every two minutes to explain the cinematography and sound design to you two?”

“You know she did.” Eddie chuckles and Richie laughs too. He wishes he’d been there, but he knows they’ll probably watch a movie tomorrow night too. And Henley will do the exact same thing. He seriously, can’t wait to be out of this cold ass city. He was always a baby when it came to the cold, and Eddie’s always kept him warm.

“I miss the kids too, goddamn.” He scrubs a hand across his face and glances at the clock. Morning can’t come soon enough. “This sucks. I’m never doing another special.”

Eddie hums, knowing that’s complete and utter bullshit. “How about we take it one step at a time, babe.”

“Not my fault I have the best fucking family.”

“Okay, now I know it’s too late, you’re getting all sappy on me.” Eddie laughs, bashful, but it sounds warm and content, staticky over the phone line. “Go to sleep. You’re getting too loopy.”

Richie blinks, already sleepy, “Just love you.”

“I love you too. Go to bed.”

And Richie does.

Winter unfurls over the warm streets of Los Angeles like a slow, cooling hand, soothing every square, block, and corner of the country’s second largest city.

Atticus Kaspbrak is lounging belly-down on a towel on the white sand of Venice Beach, book cracked in his sun-tanned hands. His skin is a shade darker, a lovely gold speckled with freckles from a year under the California sun. His hair is longer, cut short on the sides to keep it out of his face, but it’s just as dark as it used to be.

Henley Tozier sits up next to him, propping herself up on her skinny, baby-bird elbows. She herself is looking a little different now too, having grown a few more inches to match her faded, bleached hair. Seeing Atti reading a book he’s read multiple times before, she smiles, bugs-bunny teeth and all. 

“Haven’t you read that one, like a million times before?” She asks over the cry of seagulls and the crash of waves. 

Atti squints over at her through his sunglasses, his freckled nose wrinkling. “So?”

“Uh, so. Doesn’t it get boring?”

“Nope,” he smiles, turning back to the beloved pages, “does watching _The Shining_ every weekend get boring?”

She hisses, her eyes crinkling in a smile, “Touché.”

They fall quiet, and Henley looks up at the cloudless sky. She feels the sun on her skin, slick and shimmery with the sunscreen Eddie had slathered both of them with.

“You only like that book cause Bill wrote it for you.”

Atti scoffs, “He didn’t write it _for me._ ”

“It literally says _‘For Atticus’_ on like, the first page.”

Atti fumes silently, his mouth set stubbornly in a straight line. “It’s the third page, actually.” 

Henley chortles, laying back down until she feels the soft, pillowy sand beneath her head, in the waves of her hair. “I thought all of his books were bad?”

Atti rolls his eyes. “That’s just what Richie says. Besides, this one has a happy ending”

“I thought you liked sad endings?”

She sees Atti smile to himself. “I changed my mind.”

“I’m worried for your health, Atti. This Denbrough obsession of yours might be unhealthy.”

“Oh my God, it’s not an _obsession_. I’m a fan. And also his nephew.”

“Which makes it weird!”

“It’s not weird! You’re the one being weird- how is it weird to-”

A familiar voice calls to them through the warm air. “Hey guys!”

Henley sits bolt upright, her skin going hot, but not from the sun. Atti rolls onto his side to look.

Georgia Denbrough hops off her bike onto long, lean legs. Her fire-red hair is tied in two braids that bounce as she runs towards them, in a bathing suit and shorts. 

Atti smiles. “ _My_ Denbrough obsession?”

Henley absolutely _whirls_ on him. “Shut it, Atti.”

He grins into his paperback, staying silent.

“I’m serious, dude. I’ll kill you.”

“Hey,” Georgia says, panting as she drops into the sand next to them, “sorry I’m late. I was helping Mike at the farm.”

Her cheeks are flushed a cherry pink from running, and her chest heaves. Henley swallows. “No biggie.”

Georgia looks at the book Atti’s reading and laughs. “Nice book, Atti.”

Henley interjects quickly, “He’s read like, all of your dad’s books.”

Atti frowns at her. But it backfires, because Georgia smiles and crosses her legs in front of her. “I’ve read all of them too. Which one’s your favorite?”

Atti holds the book up. “Definitely this one.”

Henley looks between the two of them.

“Right?” Georgia grins, her hands flying up. “It’s so much better! It feels so refreshing!”

“Oh my God, totally!” Atti squirms upwards into a sitting position. “I can’t wait to see it as a movie!”

“Really?” Henley snorts, starting to lay back down. Georgia looks down at her, smiling into her face.

“Yeah! I think it would do really well on the big screen.”

“Better than his other ones,” Atti said in his dry way that always makes Georgia laugh. Henley frowns.

“Hm. Maybe I should read it.” 

Georgia looks back at her and smiles but Atti just squints incredulously at her. “You hate reading, Henley.”

“You should!” Georgia encourages, tucking a strand of blazing hair behind the shell of her ear. “Dad would be so happy.”

Henley smiles at her, cheeks flushing to match the fluttering of her heart. “Then I will.”

Atti rolls his eyes so hard it looks like it might hurt.

“Cool,” Georgia muses, her pretty smile almost blinding. “Didn’t you guys want to swim?”

“Hell yeah.” Henley perks up, stretching her arms up above her.

Atti blinks and looks back down at his back as Georgia stands. “You guys go ahead. Lemme finish this chapter.”

Georgia pulls her shorts off and Henley focuses on staring down Atti instead of looking at Georgia. She’s not trying to be a pervert. “You sure, dude?”

Atti shoots her a smirking glance. “Yeah. Go on.”

Henley wants to be mad at him, but she just grins instead. Georgia grabs her by the wrist and pulls her to her feet as Atti lays back and shakes his head at them. 

Seagulls take off into flight as the two of them tear down the beach, kicking up sand in a race to the water.

Richie gets home a little bit after four that afternoon. The house is still except for the loud hum of their vacuum, coming from somewhere down the hall. He smiles, finding the noise a little endearing, since he knows Eddie’s behind it. Leaving his jacket and bag by the door, he moves through the freshly cleaned house, marveling at the swept floors and cleaned shelves. Eduardo’s gone mad for sure if their house looks like this.

And at the end of the hall, lo and behold, there’s Eddie. Eddie, and his beloved vacuum, pushing it over the tile of the hallway in front of their rooms. Richie leans up against the wall, smiling. He’s wearing one of Richie’s too-big, stupid shirts, and a pair of khakis, even though he’s indoors. Eddie must sense him there, because he looks over his shoulder and flashes him a huge grin.

“Hey! I didn’t hear you get home!” He shouts like a maniac over the vacuum.

“Just walked in,” Richie shouts back, then gestures with his hand, “that’s my shirt.”

Eddie clicks the vacuum off and approaches him in the sudden, blank silence. “I know.”

“It’s cute.” Richie hums as Eddie wraps his arms around his neck. “You’re cute.”

Eddie blinks up at him. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Richie sighs and then kisses him.

Eddie pushes up into it, standing on his toes to better the angle. Richie groans, because it’s literally their first kiss since Eddie kissed him goodbye in the driveway a week ago. The emotion hits him like a giant wave, in a destructive crash against the seashore. 

“Oh my God.” Richie says, grabbing Eddie in both arms. “I missed this.”

Eddie sighs against his stubbly jaw, and it feels like home. “I know. I missed you so much, you troll. Never leave again.”

Richie laughs into another kiss, squeezing Eddie so hard he might crack a bone. “That’s the plan.” Richie pulls away only a centimeter to look at him. “Where are the kids?”

“Beach. Meeting up with Georgia.”

Richie smiles against his skin that smells like fabric softener and deodorant. He breathes that smell in and then breathes out on a sigh, “Lucky us.”

Eddie huffs a laugh and curls his hands into Richie’s collar to drag him down the hall towards their room. His chest rumbles with a happy groan as Eddie pushes him down onto their bed, and he feels up the familiar comforter with his hands. Eddie straddles his hips, leaning over him to kiss his face. It’s surprisingly sweet and tame, considering Richie’s already half hard in his jeans.

“Mm, hello.” He giggles as Eddie kisses his nose. “Are we just doing this now? We’re just dudes who kiss each other’s faces?”

“We’re allowed to be affectionate, you know.” Eddie grumbles and cups Richie’s face with both hands. Richie reaches up and rubs Eddie’s knuckles with his thumbs.  
“No, I get it. It’s fitting, ‘cause you’re cute.”

“I’m forty-two, Rich. I’m not cute.”

“Yeah, you are.” Richie insists, kissing each of his fingers delicately. “Always have been. Eddie Kaspbrak, cutest boy in the world.”

Eddie grinds against him deliberately, and Richie hums, low and pleased. “You have to stop calling me cute in bed.”

“You’re not cute,” Richie agrees, feeling Eddie harden up when he grinds down again, “you’re hot as fuck.”

“Shut up,” he says, but it’s through a breathy laugh as he pulls his shirt off. Richie sighs out his approval as he roams his hands over the peaks and dips of the white scar that runs from Eddie’s naval to his pecs.

He sits up and folds himself around Eddie, trying to kiss the scar away, reaching around to pet his back and palm his ass. Eddie threads his hands into Richie’s curls, kissing the top of his head and pulling him impossibly closer.

“I missed this.” Richie mumbles, and Eddie makes a noise of agreement into his hair. “Like, I missed you, and I missed our sex and your dick-”

“Oh, thank you.”

“-but I missed this too.” Richie smiles into his skin, feeling Eddie’s heart beat in his chest. He may be missing three ribs, and has other people’s organs inside him, but by God his heart is still beating.

“I missed having coffee with you.” Eddie whispers, scraping his blunt nails along Richie’s scalp. “And I missed sitting on the couch with you, even though you always put your feet on the coffee table.”

“My legs are too long for the couch!”

“It’s a glass fucking table! We’ll get an ottoman for Christ’s sake!”

Richie laughs loudly, leaning back and taking Eddie with him. God, he adores him.

They end up horizontal on the bed, with the door locked as a precaution. In the blink of an eye, Richie’s shirt is off and Eddie’s already shucking his khakis and folding them to put on the dresser.

Richie must watch him a little too long, because Eddie looks back at him and frowns. “Are you a virgin? Take your pants off.”

Richie can’t look away as Eddie comes back over to their bed, but he tries anyway. “Uh-huh.”

He eyes Eddie’s legs as he strips; ropey and lean muscled from morning jogs. Good for kicking monsters in the face. His arms are well built and he still has a fucking six-pack, even though he gets all red when Richie points it out.

“Look at _you_.” Richie mutters as Eddie pulls his jeans off. He stares deliberately at Eddie’s tiny briefs, and particularly how they’re tented in the front. “What a piece of _ass_ , Eduardo.” 

Eddie laughs, his face red as he folds Richie’s jeans. “Stop staring at my dick, you animal. My eyes are up here.”

Richie looks up at him, and feels the heat go through him like lightning when their eyes meet. Eddie’s got that whole turned-on glow happening, with the flush high in his cheeks and eyes like pools of jet. His simpering smile is what love must look like.

“Yeah, I know.” Richie whispers and reaches out to pet Eddie’s thigh. Eddie glares down at him, but it’s hot and full of want. “I knew where I was looking.”

“God, you’re unbearable.” Eddie growls, his voice a pure heat that goes straight to Richie’s groin. He groans, eyes screwing shut as he grinds his hips against the mattress for some form of relief.

“Oh, I try.” Richie throws his arms out wide and grins. “Come to me, please.”

Eddie smiles back at him and crawls up the bed and into his arms. Richie pulls him up by his biceps, laughing as Eddie squirms, trying to straddle Richie. He’s kissing at his throat and trying to situate their legs at the same time, and the angle makes it all the more harder.

They do that for a while, necking and grinding through their underwear like teenagers. Eddie pulls at his hair like he’s mad about something, but Richie isn’t complaining one bit. His nails bite across Richie’s soft thighs when he pulls off his boxers, and then he’s sinking down onto Richie like he wasn’t meant to do anything else.

“Fucking _hell_.” Richie hisses, dogging marks into Eddie’s thighs with his fingertips.

“Yeah.” Eddie gasps, his head tilted back as the bed rocks beneath them. Man, had Richie missed this.

“I love you so- much.” Richie grits, his voice almost breaking with how much emotion is poured into it. Eddie smiles and curses and groans and moves his hips a little faster.

When Richie presses his hand to the scar, he thinks he can feel Eddie’s orgasm beneath the roughened, white skin.

“Up.” Eddie says, shoving his shoulder. Richie groans and swats him away. The sheets are still warm from what they had been doing, and Richie doesn’t know how Eddie is up and at ‘em so quickly. Richie feels bone-tired from his trip and sex-tired from - well, sex.

“Come on,” Eddie insists, the bed dipping as he stands, “the kids’ll be home soon and you need to shower. I gotta get back to cleaning.”

Richie sighs and watches Eddie begin to wipe himself off in the bathroom. “Why’re you cleaning before we go to Bev’s?”

Eddie looks at him through the mirror as he pulls his brief back up over his sculpted ass. “Because. That way, we’ll come home to a clean house. I won’t want to do it when we get back.”

Richie groans, his skin feeling sticky with drying sweat. “We always used to cuddle afterwards. Where did the love go, Eddie?”

“Oh, you poor baby.” Eddie looks at him and actually seems to pity him for a moment. He comes over and sits on the edge of the bed next to Richie. “We don’t have time. You have to do laundry and I have to pack bags.”

Richie huffs as Eddie kisses up his chest to his shoulder. “Why did we plan a trip the day after I got home again?”

“Because your shooting schedule sucks.” Eddie says and kisses him deceivingly. Richie hums and presses their foreheads together.

“C’mon,” Eddie pulls away and slaps Richie’s naked thigh, “go shower and I’ll cuddle with you after dinner.”

Richie groans as Eddie stands and starts to dress himself. “I’ll hold you to that.”

Eddie pulls on his shirt as Richie struggles back into his boxers and heads over to the closet. Eddie eyes his back as he opens it.

“What are you doing?”

Richie yawns and stretches his back. “Gonna start packing.” He pulls out their winter jackets and Eddie leaps up.

“No, hey.”

Richie looks at him curiously as he puts the jackets on the bed.

“I’ll pack,” Eddie says, quieter, and kisses Richie’s freckled shoulder, “go shower. I got this.”

“Nah, you’re doing the cleaning. I’m a gentleman, Eds, lemme help.”

Eddie smiles sweetly, “You'll fold the clothes all wrong and give them wrinkles. Let me do it.”

Richie wrinkles his nose at him, “Knew you had an ulterior motive, Kaspbrak. I like that about you.”

With that, he kisses the scar on Eddie’s cheek and heads into the bathroom, scratching at his ass. Eddie watches him go, and then looks down at the jackets. He picks up his and blinks at it.

After making sure Richie’s back is turned, he reaches into the inside pocket and makes sure the ring is still there.

“I _really_ didn’t miss this.” Atti mutters, his breath turning to gray fog in the frigid Colorado air. Eddie hands him his suitcase from the trunk and laughs.

Richie seethes from underneath his hat, his hands shoved beneath into his armpits. “You’re telling me. I haven’t been this cold in thirty years. My dick’s gonna fall off.”

“Shut up and grab a bag.” Eddie grunts and pushes a duffle bag into Richie’s chest. “Hens! Come grab a bag please!”

Henley runs over from where she’d been catching snowflakes in her palms. “It’s so cold! This is so cool, is this what winter is always like?”

“You’ve never seen snow before?” Atti asks as he hands her the backpack.

“She’s seen snow before.” Richie remarks dryly, “You were born in New York, Hens.”

“Yeah, but those were baby memories. Baby memories don’t count. Race you to the door!”

“Don’t run, you'll slip on the ice!” Eddie yells, but the kids are already taking off across the snowy driveway towards the porch. He sighs and closes the rental car’s trunk. Richie chuckles and pulls him closer by his hip as they make their way through the quickly falling snow.

“How are my favorite trolls?” Henley screams as soon as she gets inside, only to be promptly tackled by Ari and Annie Uris.

“Man, you stink as much as last time!” Annie giggles as she squeezes Henley relentlessly. She’s only a little taller than Henley, with curls like Stan and a smile like Patty’s.

Ari sees Atti and remarks in his dry way, “You haven't grown at all.” 

Atti’s never gotten along with other boys before. They were always taller and scarier and looked down at him. They were brutish and mean and the worst part of his school years. 

But Ari isn’t like them. He’s nice and funny and doesn’t put up with Henley’s bullshit. When they hug, the top of Atti’s head barely meets his chin. He smells like cloves. 

“How’ve you guys been? How was your holiday?”

“Eh, kinda boring. We barely get any snow in Atlanta.” Annie sighs from where she’s still wrapped around Henley.

“Where’s our other niece?” Beverly yells as she steps into the front hall. Henley gasps and practically shoves Annie off.

“Aunt Bev!”

Bev sweeps her off her feet and hugs her tight. Ben watches them fondly before rushing over to help Atti and his fathers with the bags.

“How’s my favorite Tozier been?” Bev coos and kisses her face.

“Hey!” Richie cries as he and Eddie step into the mudroom. “Rude.”

“I’ve been great!” Henley pulls away and instead presses her hands to either side of Bev’s very pregnant stomach. “And how’s Henley Jr doing, huh?”

Bev glances at Ben and winces painfully. “Actually, honey-”

Eddie looks up from where he’s pulling off his snow crusted boots. “What? What’s wrong? Is the baby okay?”

“The baby’s fine.” Bev reassures him as Ben comes over to her side. “ _He’s_ doing fine, you guys.”

Henley recoils from her stomach and gasps dramatically as Atti cheers behind her. “ _No._ ”

Bev tries to hide her smile, “I’m so sorry, honey.”

“We went to the doctor last week.” Ben explains, at least trying to look a little sad. “It’s a boy.”

Henley stares menacingly at Bev’s stomach. “Traitor.”

Atti rushes forward and presses his ear to Bev’s belly. “Now you can name him Atticus Jr!”

Stan Uris pulls off his reading glasses and shoos his kids into the living room as he walks in. “Way to be the last to the party, Trashmouth.”

“Don’t blame me, dude,” he grins as they hug tightly, “Edster was driving.”

Eddie shoulders Richie out of the way to hug Stan himself. “It’s been a couple years since I’ve driven in snow, cut me some slack. I’m used to California weather by now.”

Bev puts her arm around his shoulder and pulls him into the kitchen, where music is playing from a radio. “Better than New York, I bet?”

“Nice place, Haystack.” Richie says as he pulls off his hat and combs his fingers through his hair.

“Thanks, Rich.” Ben smiles and grabs a couple suitcases with his Brazilian-soccer-player arms. “Designed it myself.” 

“Quite the upgrade from that old clubhouse, huh?” Richie jokes as they head downstairs, where the guest rooms are.

“Oh my Gosh! You both have gotten so big!” Patty Uris rushes out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron and scooping Henley and Atti into a hug. 

“I’m only a little shorter than Eddie now.” Henley says eagerly, giggling as Patty kisses the tops of their heads.

“Oh, I bet he _loves_ that.”

Henley laughs loudly, “He _hates_ it.”

She motions for all of them to come into the kitchen. “Come sit! We’re making dinner.”

The kitchen smells like something savory and rich and warm, a nice contrast from the bitter, dark cold outside. Mike’s at the stovetop, but he looks away from the pot when the kids and Eddie stumble in.

“Hey, Uncle Mike!” Atti runs up and hugs him around the waist. “Smells pretty good.”

“Thanks, Atti, wanna lend a hand?” Mike ruffles his hair and hands him a wooden spoon as Patty joins them at the counter.

“Wine, Eddie?” Bev holds up a bottle from the pantry and Eddie sighs as he finally sits down.

“Please.”

Bev laughs and grabs a glass from the pantry. She fills it up a good halfway before she hands it to Eddie. 

“Where’s uh- where’s Georgia?” Henley asks, fiddling with her hands. Mike eyes her, smiling, and then nods towards the living room.

“In the living room, with her dad and Stan.”

Henley immediately speeds out of the kitchen and into the other room, presumably to go sit with Georgia. Eddie watches her go and then looks back at Atti.

“Hey. What’s that about?”

Atti bites off a smile and shrugs as he pushes a rolling pin through pie dough. “I don’t know.”

Eddie squints, “Bullshit, what's it about?”

“I said I don’t _know_ , Dad.”

Eddie cranes his head to see Henley at the coffee table, hunched over a puzzle with Georgia. Their shoulders are touching.

“Oh, my God,” he shakes his head as he takes a sip of wine. Eddie huffs a laugh, hiding his grin behind his glass. It actually makes him a little teary, since he remembers how he had to shove those feelings deep down when he was Henley’s age. Now, she doesn’t have to hide that from her own family. Because she has nothing to be ashamed of. He wishes he’d had a little bit of that.

Bev snaps him back to the present when she sits down at the table with him with a glass of sparkling water. “So. I didn’t see a ring on his finger.” 

Eddie absolutely glares at her. “Wow. Okay, tell the whole kitchen, why don’t you.”

“When are you going to ask him, Eddie?” She leans forward, her voice lowered now, thank God.

Eddie rolls his eyes and sighs through his nose. “I don’t know. I was going to, yesterday, but he just got home and-”

“You were _supposed_ to ask him before he left for the shoot.” She smirks, eyebrows raised.

“Yeah, I know.” He takes a large swing of his wine, “But it wasn’t the right time, and then he was gone for a week, and now it’s just-”

“Just?” She prodes when he trails off.

“It’s too much. I can’t ask him now.”

“Why not?”

“Because then- then it’ll,” he waves his hands around helplessly, “it’ll be this _huge_ deal.”

She rolls her eyes, “Eddie, you’re asking him to marry you, of course it’s a huge deal.”

“You’re really helping with this, thank you.”

“It’s not like he’ll say _no._ ”

Eddie drinks more wine. He covers the glass with his palm and purses his lips as he stares daggers into the wall. “He might.”

“Bullshit.” Bev bites out, and Eddie laughs. “You two have literally been drooling over each other for thirty years now. Like hell he’d say no.”

When Eddie doesn’t say anything for a while, Bev reaches over and takes his hand. Her wedding ring catches and glints in the light of the kitchen. They don’t even have to say anything, they just sit there and listen to the laughter and the chatter of their family around them.

After dinner, the kids are sitting in front of the television trying to decide on a movie.

“What about _School of Rock_?”

“Pass.”

“ _Pursuit of Happyness_?”

“Pass.”

“Aw, I like Will Smith!” Annie sighs from where she’s helping her father with a puzzle at the recently-cleared dining table.

“ _Love Actually_?” 

“Ugh, gross.” Henley sighs and picks at the beads and popcorn laying around her.

Ari rolls his eyes and turns away from the collection of movies. “Oh my God, fine, does anyone have any suggestions?”

“ _Donnie Darko!_ ”

“Anyone other than Henley.”

Henley huffs and goes back to miserably stringing popcorn and red beads onto a strand of yarn.

“Put on a Christmas movie, you guys.” Aunt Bev tells them from where Bill and Georgia are helping her put the lights on the tree.

“Well, I’m Jewish, so that’s not my department.” Ari raises his hands in the air and shimmies away from the television set.

“Put on _Die Hard_!” Atti suggests, crawling forward on his knees to look through the movies himself. 

“ _Die Hard_ isn’t a Christmas movie.” Georgia tells him.

“Uh, yeah it is? It takes place on Christmas Eve.”

“That doesn’t mean-”

Henley looks up suddenly, gasping, “Oh my God, please put on _Black Christmas_!”

“We’re not watching _Black Christmas_!” Richie says, not looking up from the box of ornaments on the table and Henley groans, refocusing on her garland.

“I’ll watch it with you later if you want, Henley.” Georgia turns from the tree, smiling, and Atti has to physically restrain a groan. 

“Oh. Yeah. We can do that.” Henley nods frantically, her eyes wide. Atti almost gags.

“Ari, just put on _It’s A Wonderful Life_ or something.” Annie calls to her twin from where she’s bent over the puzzle. Ari rolls back over to the television set and picks out a DVD.

As the opening title sequence begins, Henley looks patronizingly around the base of the half-naked tree. “Where are all the presents?”

Mike comes over and sits next to her with the bowl of popcorn and beads, and picks up the other end of the string. “Well, we can’t bring out the presents until the tree’s fully decorated.”

“Yeah, Henley, so you better get cracking.” Ari teases, and earns a kernel flicked into his face.

“Aw, shit,” Eddie mutters, over at the table where he’s struggling to untangle the tinsel, “we left the presents in the car.”

Richie grunts as he stands, “I’ll go get ‘em.” He scratches at the strip of skin where his sweater has ridden up and downs the rest of his eggnog. “Where’re the keys?”

Eddie hands the tinsel to Bill so they can finally start dressing the tree properly. “Should be in my coat pocket.”

“Got it,” Richie kisses his forehead and leaves towards the mudroom.

Eddie doesn’t realize his mistake until Richie comes back into the room with something in his hand. He’s too busy nursing his mug of hot cider and helping Stan and Annie with the remains of the puzzle. Richie comes over to his side and just stands there, prompting Eddie to finally look up.

“Did you find the keys?” He asks, eyebrow raised, because he hasn’t seen the little box in Richie’s hand yet.

“Nope.” Richie says simply, and opens his hand, “Found this though.”

Eddie immediately claps his hand over the thing in Richie’s palm and stumbles to his feet. Richie’s grinning like an actual idiot. 

“What the hell is your problem?”

“What the- Eds!” Richie laughs maniacally and Eddie shushes him frantically. “What is this?”

Eddie stares at him, his heart in his throat. Richie doesn’t seem mad in the slightest, but he doesn’t seem as touched as Eddie thought he would either. Eddie licks his lips and looks down at the box. He wants to pass out right now. 

“Eddie.”

“You know what it is, Richie, don’t be a jackass right now.”

Richie’s smile drops a little and he huffs a quiet noise. He looks at the box. He looks back up at Eddie, his smile now gone. Eddie’s hands feel clammy.

“Is it for me?”

Eddie has to laugh, “No. It’s for Bev.”

Richie snorts and knocks their foreheads together. Eddie puts his hand to his jaw and takes the box out of Richie’s palm and into his own hand. He remembers why he got it and feels his courage grow.

“What is it for?” Richie whispers, even though he knows well enough.

“You know what it’s for.” Eddie whispers back, and the rest of the noise around them slips away. Richie’s hand lands on his hip and Eddie can hear the blood rushing in his ears.

Eddie looks down at the box and flicks it open silently. Taking one of Richie’s hands in his, not looking away from him, he gets down onto one knee right there in Beverly’s living room.

“Man, this popcorn’s stale.” Henley mutters, but continues to eat out of the bowl.

“Because it’s not supposed to be eaten, you clod.” Ari rolls his eyes and turns his back to her as he instead helps Mike string the popcorn garland.

“Hey, be nice to your cousin.” Stan tells him without looking up.

“Yeah, Ari, how do you even know how to do this? You’re Jewish.”

“Uh, we have a Hanukkah bush, Henley.”

Henley snorts and Ari knows without seeing her face that he’s provided her with prime joke material. “Hanukkah bush! Isn’t that what you call your pubes?”

She gets a laugh out of Bill and Georgia, but that’s the only satisfaction she gets.

“Ugh, shut up, Henley!” Ari groans.

“Yeah, shut up, Henley!” Atti looks over from the couch, but something else catches his eye. “Holy fuck!”

“What?” Henley turns around to see what he’s looking at and actually screams. “Oh my God!”

Thank God the bowl isn’t actually glass because she drops it to the floor to put her hands to her mouth.

“Richie,” Eddie begins, and he thinks he hears an actual struggle to quiet Henley’s shouts. Richie’s eyes are comically wide.

“Yeah?” His voice is unusually high too. Eddie laughs suddenly, the emotions too big to contain anymore. He holds Richie’s hand tighter.

“You drive me crazy, every single day. I love you and I love being with you even when I’m mad at you.” The words come easier than he thought they would. Richie always makes him so brave. God, was he dumb to be worried. 

“I want to feel like that, with you, for the rest of my life. So, will you please marry me?”

“I fucking will!” Richie yelps and drags Eddie back up onto his feet. Everyone’s clapping but Eddie can’t even be bothered, because he’s too busy absolutely kissing his new fiancé senseless.

Henley grabs Atti by the shoulders and shakes him so hard he loses his footing, and Atti only gets her to stop by pulling her into a crushing hug. 

“They could’ve done this so much sooner.” Bill sighs, but he’s grinning so hard his face hurts.

“You know them, Bill, they had to be morons about it first.” Stan shakes his head but he’s smiling when Patty reaches over to take his hand.

“I love you.” Eddie whispers into Richie’s smile, through his tears. “I love you so much.”

“I love you.” Richie repeats, voice quivering. “I’m gonna marry you.”

Eddie only pulls away to slip the ring onto his finger, and it feels so much better than the first time he did this.

“Oh my God,” Richie sobs, “I’ve never worn one of these before.”

Eddie laughs and hugs him so tightly he’s worried he’ll bruise Richie’s skin. He’s starting to cry now too because he’s so _happy_ , Richie’s holding him tight and he said _yes_ and Eddie’s so happy. Who would have ever thought they’d get here.

Atti runs up and hugs them both from behind, making the two of them stumble and laugh out of their kiss. Henley’s practically vibrating, bouncing on the balls of her feet as she runs over to hug them too. 

“You didn’t tell me! Why didn’t you tell me!” Atti cries and burrows his face into Eddie’s shirt.

“Are you crying?” Eddie asks when Henley hugs him, brushing the hair from her face.

“No.” She mumbles, but her giddy voice wavers slightly. 

“Fuck you, I’m the one crying!” Richie barks a laugh and reaches up under his glasses to wipe his eyes.

“Aw, _fuck_ , now I’m actually crying. What the hell, Dad.” Henley takes her glasses off and scrubs at her red face. Eddie puts his arm around her and kisses the top of her head.

“I was going to ask for your permission,” Eddie tells her, and she responds by putting her face in his shoulder. “But I knew you couldn’t keep a secret.”

“No I couldn’t.” She sputters and he laughs.

“You were gonna ask my _daughter_ for my hand in marriage?” Richie wails, starting to cry again.

“It’s a big deal, Rich.” Eddie smiles and hugs Henley before whispering, “Do I have your permission?”

“Yes.” She sobs and squeezes him around the waist. “Please marry my dad.”

“Gladly.” Eddie laughs and pulls Richie back into his arms.

“We’re gonna have a gay wedding!” Atti hollers and Richie laughs and snorts through his tears.

“The _gayest_ wedding.” Henley agrees and tugs Atti closer by his shoulder.

“And we’re gonna be siblings,” he adds, putting his head on her shoulder. She laughs and sniffs, scrubbing a hand across her face. 

“We’ve been siblings, man.”

And later that night, in Ben and Beverly Hanscom’s guest room, Eddie kisses Richie’s shoulder and takes his hand under the covers. Richie turns to look at him in the darkened room, and reaches for Eddie’s face like he’s done so many times before.

Eddie grabs his wrist and rubs it with his thumb. “Are you happy?”

Richie grins, petting the scar on Eddie’s cheek, barely visible in this light. It’s just a reminder of what they had to do to get here; to get their happy ending. Richie thinks it was worth it. He’d do it all over again if he knew this was his future.

“I’ve never been happier.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmk if a wedding fic is wanted, i wanted to leave this open ended and up to interpretation, but i also do have some ideas in mind :))  
> and now i’m quarantined until may so i actually have nothing to do. so.
> 
> thank you so much for reading!! i love you all!! stay safe and leave comments regarding the future of this series!!

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos encourage me to keep going! :)))


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